


catch me as i take a dive

by LtTanyaBoone



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Child Death, Depression, F/F, Grief, Internalized Homophobia, Medication, Misunderstandings, Panic Attacks, Support Group
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:54:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 36,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26644822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LtTanyaBoone/pseuds/LtTanyaBoone
Summary: "It still hurts. Even after two years, it still hurts, hurts so much that there are times where the pain takes her breath away. It’s this terrible ache inside her chest that never goes away, that always sits there, right behind her sternum. And at times, it will flare. It becomes blinding agony, one that threatens to consume her."akaDelphine and Cosima meet at a support group for grieving parents.
Relationships: Delphine Cormier & Cosima Niehaus, Delphine Cormier/Cosima Niehaus, Delphine Cormier/Other(s)
Comments: 35
Kudos: 62





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> trigger warnings/content warnings for **child death (throughout), grief (throughout), suicidal ideation, alcohol, drug use (marijuana), potential survivor's guilt** , mental health issues (throughout, specifically depression and panic attacks), sexual content in later chapters, support group meetings
> 
> the working title for this was "dead!kids AU". please take the warnings seriously. both of them struggle with the loss of their children throughout this, i never wanted to diminish that kind of loss, so this may be, painful and hard-hitting at times. the cause of death for delphine's child is never specified, but it is for cosima's
> 
> if you don't feel like you can read this, it's alright, please take care!!
> 
> there are fourteen "chapters" with three sections each, told from alternating POVs of Cosima and Delphine. i'll try posting at least once a week.

1 Delphine

She wants to believe that everything happens for a reason. Wants to believe in the stories, the ones that feel like distant fairy tales. Wants to believe that bad people are punished for their actions, and good things will come to good people. And that, in the end, good will always, always triumph over evil. That good will win out, and if it doesn’t, then it’s not the end yet.

But as much as she wants to believe in these things, Delphine can’t. She simply cannot do it any longer. No matter how hard she tries to hold onto that naive belief, no matter how hard she tries to dig her fingers in, her grip always slips, always fails.

It still hurts. Even after two years, it still hurts, hurts so much that there are times where the pain takes her breath away. It’s this terrible ache inside her chest that never goes away, that always sits there, right behind her sternum. And at times, it will flare. It becomes blinding agony, one that threatens to consume her. That blots out the rest of the world, and pulls her under and sometimes, she catches herself wishing that it would just finally be over, once and for all. At least then the pain would stop, and she’d finally, after years of suffering, would be at peace again.

* * *

2 Cosima

She jiggles her leg, her nerves showing after a pretty long day. Cosima reaches up and touches her dreads. Toys with one absentmindedly, thinking that she may have to get the ends tidied up as she listens to Karen talk and talk and talk.

The thing is, she kind of gets it. It’s still new, for Karen. It’s only the second time that she’s here. Lots of others take much longer, to even start talking. Don’t feel comfortable doing it at only their second session, but then again, it’s a Significant Date, so Cosima figures that that probably had a large role in making the other woman want to talk.

It’s just, Karen’s not the only one who had a rough time, this week. Especially for the past two days. Cosima herself could do with talking about some stuff, as well. Could really, really do with some venting.

“Cosima?”

“Huh?”

The sound of her name makes her look up sharply. She looks to her right and finds that Ben has tilted his head at her slightly. Is watching her with those intense eyes of his.

“Do you want to share something?” he asks and if Cosima weren’t gay, she’d probably kiss him, right there.

He’s a good guy, she thinks. Tries hard to look out for everyone in their group. Makes sure that they all get something out of this kind of, morbid support group.

“Uh,” she frowns, reaching up to rub the back of her neck in embarrassment. “I, I dunno,” she sighs. She hadn’t expected anyone to ask her if she wanted to talk anymore. Had fully resigned herself to only listening to Karen for the remainder of this meeting.

Cosima reaches up to touch the medallion resting at the base of her throat. The familiar weight provides some comfort.

“Actually,” she starts, swallowing. “Yeah. I, I wanted to, to go to the cemetery. Visit the grave, you know, put down some flowers. Maybe say some things,” she shrugs.

Cosima’s not really a believer. And she’s well aware of that being something a lot of the people in the group don’t share with her. A lot of them, they’re finding comfort in their religion, in their churches and temples and communities. But Cosima mostly left hers a couple years back and these days, the brunette considers herself an atheist. These words that she would have spoken, they wouldn’t have been a prayer or anything like that. No, Cosima, she would have probably just, talked. About stuff, things that have been happening in her life. Told her, how much she misses her. That kind of stuff.

“You wanted to?” Ben presses and Cosima lets out a ragged breath.

“I didn’t make it,” she admits as she hangs her head in shame. Feels the familiar burn of tears in her eyes yet again and has to resist the urge to reach up and wipe them away. It would just draw more attention to her state.

“I just… It hurt, too much. Which is so pathetic, right? Because like, I have no other place to go to, y’know? Like, Sam, she didn’t… I only had her, for a few hours. We only had that small chunk of time, with each other, and then she died, so there’s really no other place that she ever saw, besides that damn hospital. So, what am I supposed to do?” Cosima asks, grabbing hold of the little ball of anger inside her belly. That’s good, anger’s good and familiar and easier to deal with. Anger won’t make her break down in front of these people.

“Am I supposed to go up, to L&D, and ask if they’ll let me light a candle in their delivery suite and just sit there for hours?” she chuckles darkly with a shake of her head.

“It’s not pathetic.”

At the sound of the soft voice, Cosima looks up sharply, her eyes finding the blonde that sits a few seats down to her right.

She can’t remember when the woman first started coming to the meetings. A couple weeks ago, Cosima thinks. She hasn’t really said that much, since then. Only that she had one child, a son. His name had been, something with a C. Chris, maybe? Cosima’s kind of bad with names, especially for people she doesn’t have a face to.

“I meant to go, for Charlie’s birthday,” the blonde starts. Charlie, right, that had been his name. Cosima makes a mental note of it, already well aware that by next week, she’ll have forgotten all about it again.

“I even picked up flowers, and a little teddy bear. I, I made it to the gate. But then I couldn’t get out of the car,” the blonde with the French accent shrugs, her throat working as she swallows thickly.

“But you, you got other places you could go, right?” Cosima tosses back, suddenly feeling the anger rise again. She feels like, feels like arguing. Feels like yelling, screaming, maybe even throwing a few punches. That’ll do her some mighty good. Yeah. Probably. Maybe.

To her surprise, the blonde doesn’t rise to the bait. Instead, she tilts her head and seems to actually be thinking about her question, for a moment.

“He liked the park,” she finally says, her lips curling into a soft smile as she looks down at her hands. “Near our place. It has, has two swings. A normal one, and one that’s for, for smaller children. Babies. Like a, a seat?” she frowns, rubbing her hand over her forehead before she shakes her head.

“Charlie, he’d make me push him on it, over and over and over again. He kept saying, ‘higher, Mommy, higher’. One time, he told me that, it felt like he could, he could almost touch-” she trails off with a shaky breath. “I’m sorry,” the woman breathes, getting up and hurrying from the room.

Cosima watches the door swing shut behind her, falling into the lock with a loud click that echoes in the oppressive silence that has suddenly fallen over the gym hall they conduct their meetings at.

* * *

3 Delphine

When Charlie had been two, she missed a period.

Evan and her, they’d both been terrified, but also kind of excited, at the same time. Charlie, he had been such a good child, such a wonderful little boy, that the thought of doing it all again, it actually seemed, seemed manageable.

But the test she took came back negative, and a few days later, she finally got her period. And Delphine had felt kind of sad about it. Charlie’s dad and her, they started talking. About perhaps actually doing it again. About having another baby.

Ultimately, they decided that they would start trying around Charlie’s fourth birthday. Four or five year age difference, that had sounded good, to her. Charlie would have some independence. He wouldn’t be as dependent on her while Delphine was in her last months of pregnancy. Sure, two major changes relatively close together, getting a baby sibling as well as starting school, that could prove to be a challenge, but Evan and her, they’d been confident that they would be able to handle it. To help their son through it.

And then, everything changed. Her entire world shattered, in an instant. There are some days where Delphine thinks that a second child, that might have made everything more bearable. Might have made it easier, to remain in this world, to cling to this life. To continue on.

Other days, she is very grateful that it never happened. That Evan’s mother got sick and they put off Delphine going off her birth control, and that the first couple of months of them trying didn’t take. Because Delphine is certain that she wouldn’t have been able to look after a baby just after losing her sweet, sweet little boy. Wouldn’t have had the capacity to be there for anyone else after her heart had just gotten ripped right out of her chest in such horrendous fashion.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for death, grief, drug mention, alcohol

4 Cosima

She’d known that Sam, she’d probably not live to see her first birthday. That doesn’t mean it made anything, any part of this any easier, for her.

Having a kid, that had been a strange kind of mix of an impulsive decision and thorough planning. The initial idea had just suddenly sparked in Cosima’s brain and after she’d laughed about it for a moment or two, Cosima had then sat down, and actually allowed herself to think about it.

Surrogacy had seemed like a good choice. Cosima knew that she wouldn’t be able to get pregnant herself, something that she’s mostly made her peace with. But her ovaries still produce viable eggs, so there’d been the idea that, together with a sperm donor and a surrogate, Cosima might actually be able to make that dream come true.

There’d been some, anomalies, on the scan. Which were followed up with a couple of tests, one of which finally came back telling them exactly what they were dealing with. Trisomy 18, Edwards syndrome.

Cosima, she did a lot of reading in the weeks and months that followed the news. A lot of it actually came from the uni library, but some of the books she picked up herself. Still has them, actually. Cosima thinks that, for someone looking into genetics and dealing with this stuff in her research every single day, it’s a bit funny how getting those news had just blindsided her. Kind of, you never think you’re gonna be the one struck by lightning.

Her surrogate, Anna, she’d been, absolutely amazing. Cosima owes her one, or several. She’s still so immensely grateful, to the other woman. That even though the initial agreement had been on a C-section without Cosima being present, Anna had been willing to change it. Had been willing to allow Cosima to be there when her little daughter was born. To be able to hold her immediately, to be there for her, from her very first breath on, for her entire life. As short as that ended up being.

Cosima thinks that, even knowing what she does now, having gone through what she had to go through, she still would not change a thing. She loves her little daughter, loves Sam so, so much. She was her little sunshine, that spark of excitement and promise and everything miraculous that the future could possibly be holding.

That she’d only had a few hours, with Sammy, that’s been both a blessing and a curse.

Cosima would give anything, to have had more time with her little girl. To hold her longer. To see her grow. Hear her laugh for the first time. Be able to hear her voice. Listen to her breaths as she slept. Help her learn to walk, feed herself, all those things. Cosima, she wants them, so much. And she’s still so incredibly angry, that she’ll never get to have them, that she won’t ever be able to share those moments with her little princess.

But there is also the knowledge that it happened sort of fast. That her daughter didn’t have to suffer. That she wasn’t forced to cling to this life when it was so obvious that it would have been in vain, that it would have been a painful struggle and experience. And Cosima had wanted to avoid that at all cost, had wanted to make sure that her daughter did not have to suffer.

Instead of surgeries and pain, Sam got some quiet and relatively peaceful hours in her mother’s arms. Cosima had held her and sang to her and rocked her and showered her tiny face in countless kisses as she tried to commit every single moment they got together to memory.

Letting go, that’s been one of the hardest things that Cosima ever had to do. Still has to. It feels like she’s letting go of her daughter slowly, in pieces, over time. Every couple of days, Cosima’s hold will loosen just a little more, and her daughter gets a little further away from her.

And Cosima still hasn’t figured out, if that’s a good thing or not, and how she feels about it.

* * *

5 Delphine

Her eyes close as Delphine inhales deeply. Feels the cigarette smoke travel down her throat, burning her lungs.

She purses her lips, allowing her breath to escape her again in a thin stream. Hears footsteps approaching her from behind and opens her eyes again when they stop next to her, an apology already on the blonde’s lips.

“Sorry.”

The brunette woman with the dreadlocks shoves her hands into the pockets of her bright red coat as she tilts her head at Delphine.

“Huh?” the blonde blinks, slightly confused. She thought that she would have to be the one to apologize, for smoking in front of a public building. Yet here she is, with a cigarette in her hand, being apologized to for a change.

The other woman shrugs, bouncing a little on the balls of her feet.

“I just… You know, last time, you and I… well, we didn’t really, get into it, but still. I felt like, maybe I had made you… hesitant, to come back. And I guess I just, wanted to apologize. In case what I said, or how I said it made you feel, not welcome, or anything like that,” she shrugs.

“Oh,” Delphine breathes, eyes widening when she realizes that the last time she actually went to one of the support group meetings was the day that she ended up walking out. The day she’d talked about Charlie and the swings that her son had loved so much, and she’d had to leave, before she ended up completely losing it in a room full of strangers.

“It, it wasn’t you,” she tells her, taking another drag of her cigarette. It’s a bad habit, she knows. One that she’s only ever managed to break for the duration of her pregnancy with Charlie. Once Delphine found out she quit smoking, cold turkey. But after he’d been born, she started up again a few weeks later, the stress of having a newborn in the home winning out.

“Okay,” the brunette nods, watching Delphine in a way that makes the taller woman hour our the pack of cigarettes to her, and Delphine’s lips tug into the hint of a smile when she sees the other woman’s nose crinkles in disgust.

“No thank you,” she shakes her head, her eyes twinkling. “I only smoke pot.”

“Oh?”

“Uh-huh,” the other woman nods, grinning at Delphine before her face falls again. “Helps with the thoughts, sometimes.”

That does make Delphine tilt her head with interest as she contemplates the other woman’s words.

“Perhaps I should give it a try then. Some day,” she mutters, dropping the butt of her cigarette and stepping on it. There hadn’t been an ashtray anywhere close, or else she would have used that. She’s not one for littering.

“Maybe,” the brunette agrees, regarding Delphine with interest before she jerks her head towards the double doors leading into the gym.

“Shall we go in, then?” she asks and Delphine finds herself drawing a deep breath, in an effort to mentally brace herself.

“Yes, let’s go on,” she agrees, surprised to find the brunette hook her arm through her own. She blinks down at her before giving a small shake of her head, starting to walk towards the doors.

* * *

6 Cosima

She’d thought that, if she came here pretty late, then the chances of someone calling the cops on her, it would be relatively small.

She gets it. Gets why people would be weary, of seeing some stranger at a playground, without a kid. Understands why that would ring a couple of alarm bells in people’s heads. It’s good, probably, that people are keeping a look out for others, for their kids.

Cosima reaches up and rubs a hand over her forehead, hesitating before she shakes her head.

It’s late already, the sun is starting to set. And if someone does end up calling the cops, it might not even be because of her, but because of the other lone figure sitting on one of the benches, one leg pulled up onto it.

Cosima starts walking again, heading for another bench, before she stops, something about the other woman’s posture sparking her memory. She watches her reach up and run a hand through her blonde curls and her throat constricts.

“Delphine?” she murmurs, squinting against the setting sun. Cosima reaches up to block it with her hand, and sure enough, there she is, the blonde woman from the support group. Sitting there on a bench at the playground that Cosima picked in an attempt to see if perhaps it would help her deal with some of her grief.

She starts walking towards her, starts to approach Delphine. Leans over a little in an attempt to perhaps be able to catch the blonde’s eyes, but she’s staring off into space, unseeing. It takes Cosima another couple of steps, until she is close enough that she could probably touch Delphine, to see the bottle next to the blonde’s foot on the ground.

Her eyebrows shoot up in surprise at the sight of the label. Definitely not cheap. For whatever reason, though, the blonde hadn’t struck Cosima as one who would attempt to drink her sorrow away, and Cosima definitely wouldn’t have pegged her for someone to go for vodka. Would have figured, good wine, perhaps bourbon, or whiskey.

Cosima slowly sits down at the end of the bench and draws a deep breath. Tries to remember, what the kid’s name had been. Something, something that had sounded kind of cute, when the other woman had said it, her voice laced with such affection. Ch… Ch… Charlie, yes! Her son’s name had been Charlie. Or at least that was what the woman always used, whenever she did talk about her son. Which honestly wasn’t all that often.

It’s kind of funny. That the park Cosima picked, to try and see if it might work for her, to have a place to think about her daughter, appears to be the same one that Delphine used to go to with her own child. Cosima had deliberately chosen one not in her own neighborhood, to minimize the chances of running into people she knows.

“I found out I was pregnant eight years ago today,” Delphine suddenly says. Cosima’s head whips around and she stares at the blonde. She hadn’t thought that Delphine had actually noticed her, never mind that she would decide to talk to Cosima, or acknowledge her presence.

Her voice is surprisingly clear, though, given the amount of alcohol that’s missing from the bottle. Then again, maybe she has been sitting here for a while already. Might have begun to already sober up again. Or it could have been an already opened bottle, as well.

Cosima swallows thickly before bending down to pick up the bottle. She opens it and takes a swig, coughing softly at the burn of the alcohol as she feels it go down her throat, warmth beginning to bloom inside her stomach, spreading out. She holds out the bottle to the other woman and Delphine takes it, taking a gulp of it alcohol before pressing the back of her hand over her mouth.

Cosima rubs her hands over her thighs, searching for something to say. It’s always difficult, to find the right words. Especially when she doesn’t know, if Charlie had been planned, or if the pregnancy had been accidental.

“His birthday, was rough. I didn’t expect to be today to be this rough as well,” the blonde sighs, reaching up to hide her face in her hands.

“Comes and goes in waves, I guess,” Cosima shrugs. Some days are easier for her than others. Some days, she doesn’t really think about it. And then on others, the smallest thing will remind her, of Sammy, of her wonderful little girl, and it will bring her to her knees with the sudden intensity of her grief.

“Sometimes I don’t want it to hurt anymore,” Delphine murmurs. “And then, other times, it feels like that is all I have left of him. The pain of his absence, the emptiness of where he used to be.”

“Yeah,” Cosima nods, swallowing thickly against the tears that are welling up in her eyes at the accurate description of her own feelings. “Welcome to the club.”


	3. Chapter 3

7 Delphine

It is strange, how easy she actually finds to listen to this. How it doesn’t hurt, not at all in fact, to hear Cosima talk about how she had her daughter and the pregnancy.

It could be because it is so far removed from Delphine’s own experience. How her pregnancy had been, with her son. She’d been the one who’d carried Charlie, after all. Was the one who had felt him move and gave birth to him.

Or it could be that it is listening to Cosima and watching her. How animated the other woman is, as she speaks, her hands moving about the whole time.

As she watches the clip of one of the ultrasounds that Cosima shows her, Delphine suddenly finds herself wondering when the last time she watched her own had been. She knows that she has them somewhere. Has saved them in a file folder, with all the pictures as well.

“Did you ever think…” she starts before she can stop herself. Before she actually thinks about what she’s going to ask.

Delphine’s eyes widen in silent horror at the question that she nearly posed, the words that almost left her. But much to her surprise, Cosima just tilts her head, pursing her lips.

“Think, what?” she asks. “That it was a mistake?”

Delphine swallows thickly and inclines her head.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, handing Cosima’s phone back to the brunette. “I hadn’t meant…” she frowns, searching for the right words.

“It’s not because of the, gene thing,” Delphine tries to explain. “That’s not what I meant. I meant more like, in general,” she shrugs, tugging the sleeves of her shirt over her hands as she looks away. Delphine reaches up to press a hand over her mouth as she watches another patron of the coffee shop stir creamer into his to-go cup.

“Sometimes,” Cosima answers after a few moments. The music that is playing in the background had easily filled the silence that was stretching between them, filling it so it didn’t feel as oppressive as it usually would have.

“I mean, I have often thought that, perhaps going for the termination, that might have been easier,” Cosima continues. “But yeah, I’ve had some moments where I thought, when I almost wished I never would have started trying for it at all.”

At the admission, Delphine allows a shuddering breath of relief to leave her.

“Me, too,” she murmurs softly, avoiding the other woman’s dark eyes. “And then I always think, have I gone insane?” she shakes her head at herself. “Charlie was… he is the best thing that ever happened to me. The time I had with him… I never would trade that, for anything. Ever.”

“Yeah. Me, neither,” Cosima shakes her head, a small smile tugging at her lips.

It’s strange, to hear her say that. Given how short the other woman’s time had been, with her own child, compared to the years that Delphine had, with her son. She got to see him grow. Got to hear Charlie talk and see him walk, and most of all, she got to hear him say he loved her. Cosima, she never got that. Yet the brunette still wouldn’t trade having her child and the pain that experience ended up bringing her.

“Is it weird that, sometimes, I think I know who she would have been?” Cosima asks, her brows dipping into a frown.

“How do you mean?” Delphine inquires, intrigued by the question. She picks up her cup of coffee and takes a sip, cradling the mug in her hands to warm herself a little.

“I mean, not in every sense,” Cosima tries to explain. “But, sometimes I have these moments…” the brunette frowns, looking away. “Like I feel like I just know that her favorite color would have been lavender. And yesterday, there was a song on the radio, whole I was driving, and I caught myself thinking how Sam would’ve absolutely hated that. Just, stuff like that,” she shrugs.

Delphine allows herself a moment, to consider the other woman’s words.

“I have those, too,” she finally admits. “I thought it was… Perhaps, projection?” she tries before taking another sip of her coffee as she mulls her thoughts over.

“I mean, I do know some things, about Charlie. Who he was, what he liked and didn’t like,” she continues with a slight tilts of her head.

“I know that his favorite color was bright orange, and that he loved Elmo, and Big Bird. I know his favorite ice cream flavor was strawberry, and that he hated bell peppers,” she says, a sad smile tugging on her lips as she remembers her son pulling a face and pushing the plate with his afternoon snack away.

“Hm,” Cosima sighs before emptying her glass of chai.

Delphine straightens a little in her leather armchair, suddenly afraid that she might have said the wrong thing. That Cosima will want to leave now.

“I’m gonna hit the restroom,” the brunette declares, jerking her head in the direction of the sign. “And then I’ll probably grab a muffin, after. Want me to get you anything?” she asks and Delphine cannot help but feel relief flood her at the question. She didn’t mess up, Cosima still wants to stay and hang out for longer.

“Uh,” she frowns, thinking as she casts a look towards the counter. “How about you tell me, what you’d like, and I’ll grab it while you’re…” she suggests, gesturing in the direction of the restrooms. “I don’t really know, what they have on offer,” Delphine adds at Cosima’s surprised expression, a blush coloring the blonde’s cheeks.

It’s been a while, since she went out, never mind did something like this. Went to a coffee shop and sat there. Had a long conversation with someone besides her therapist.

“Alright,” Cosima nods, smiling. “Uh, blueberry muffin. If they’re out, I’ll take chocolate.”

“Okay,” Delphine nods with a smile that feels surprisingly easy. She watches Cosima stand and head for the restrooms, leaving Delphine to finish her own coffee before she grabs the tray to put it away and goes to stand in line and make a new order, feeling strangely light inside her chest.

* * *

8 Cosima

She runs her fingers over the soft fur of the stuffed donkey, marveling at how soft and lush it is. Cosima turns to cast a look at Delphine and finds the blonde kneeling on the floor, holding a small t-shirt in her hands. Her gaze had gone distant again and the brunette has to bite back a sigh.

Cosima slowly approaches her and sinks down close to Delphine, kneeling down on the floor as well before she reaches out to touch the other woman’s shoulder.

Delphine startles at the contact, her head whipping around to stare at Cosima with wide eyes and the brunette quickly offers her a soft smile.

“It’s okay,” she murmurs. “You just… you seemed, miles away,” she adds with a small shrug, searching Delphine’s face. “I thought, maybe you wanted to, share?” she offers, swallowing thickly. She doesn’t want to push Delphine. Gets that there are things that the blonde may not be ready to talk about, especially with Cosima. They’ve only known each other for a couple of weeks, a few months. This is, incredibly personal, and if Delphine doesn’t want to tell her about it, then Cosima will understand and not push her to talk about it.

Delphine swallows thickly and looks back down at the shirt in her hands. Turns it around, so that Cosima can see the picture on it. Montreal Biodome.

“We went to visit my parents, for Thanksgiving, and went there. He loved it so much, Charlie had so much fund there…” she mutters, her fingers twisting into the soft fabric before Delphine lifts it to her face, inhaling the smell as her eyes close.

“It’s okay,” Cosima murmurs, scooting closer to wrap an arm around the grieving woman. “You can keep it, if you want. If it brings you happy memories,” she reminds her. “Or if it’s still too hard to let go of, at this point. There’s no shame, in hanging on to his things.”

Delphine gives a shuddering inhale, before the blonde nods. She carefully folds up the shirt to place it on the floor and then picks another one from the drawer. This one, she only runs her fingers over briefly, before putting it into the box that they’ve designated for donations.

When Delphine asked her if Cosima would elp her go through Charlie’s belongings, the brunette had been more than a little reluctant to agree. She had figured that it was something that the boy’s parents should be doing, together, alone with each other. But apparently, the kid’s father left a couple months ago, and while Delphine had reached out to him and asked him if he would like to have some things of their son’s, to remember him by, the man had never answered any of her attempts at contacting him.

Cosima dimly remembers reading somewhere that around twenty percent of couples that lost a child ended up breaking up. It’s something she has seen happen in their support group, as well. Everyone, they all have their own way of grieving, their own speed, and in some cases, that’s just not compatible with another person’s. Sometimes ends up hurting them more than leaving would.

It kind of makes her glad, that she decided to do this by herself. At least that way, Cosima doesn’t have to deal with anyone else and their feelings, regarding Sammy and the loss of the little girl. Well, besides Anna, that is, but Anna is, different. She’d been the surrogate, and while she’d been somewhat invested in this, it’s not like she would have been part of the girl’s life. She didn’t really lose anything, when Sam died, but Cosima did. She lost her little princess, and some days, it’s still hard to wrap her mind around that.

Cosima blinks, realizing that Delphine has managed to make it through the bottom drawer. As the blonde closes it slowly, she draws a deep breath. Closes her eyes as her shoulders slump.

“I, I think I’m done,” she murmurs with a soft shake of her head. Cosima watches as she draws her lower lip between her teeth, worrying at it as Delphine casts a look at what they’ve sorted so far. “I wanted to do more, but I don’t think I can manage anything else, today.”

“Okay,” Cosima nods, moving to close the cardboard box with the clothes that Delphine wants to donate. The blonde has put a few pieces aside, running her fingers over the one on top, the shirt from the Biodome.

Cosima slowly gets up, stretching. Picks up the donkey from the floor and carries it back to the bed, to put it back in its place on top of the pillow, where it had originally sat.

“Do you want it?” Delphine suddenly asks and Cosima whirls around to stare at her in confusion.

“What?” she asks, her brows dipping. “Oh, you mean the donkey?”

Delphine nods, biting down on her lip again.

“Sorry,” she apologizes and reaches up to pinch the bridge of her nose. She looks, incredibly tired. “It was a stupid question.”

“It’s okay,” Cosima waves her off as she tilts her head at the stuffed animal.

“It is cute,” she allows. “But I think that, donating it might be a better idea. Or gifting it to someone who would actually have a use for it,” she tries to phrase it as carefully as she can. She doesn’t want to put the image of one of her son’s toys in the hands of another child into Delphine’s head if she can avoid it. Cosima knows how painful a thing that can be. It is definitely a reason why she still has a lot of the clothes and toys she’d intended for Sammy. She simply couldn’t sell them, or give them away, because that always made her think of someone else wearing those clothes and playing with the toys, and that’s still a thought that’s too difficult for her to stomach. One day, she’ll feel joy at the idea, she knows it, and then that’ll be the right time to let go of those things.

Delphine pauses. Tilts her head and reaches up to brush her curls behind her ear. She gets up off the floor and walks over to her son’s bed. Cosima watches her pick up the animal, hugging it tightly to her chest before Delphine turns her face into the soft fur. A shiver runs through the blonde and then her shoulders begin to shake as her sobs start filling the room, and Cosima’s heart aches for the other woman and her pain. She swallows thickly and steps close, wrapping an arm around Delphine’s shoulder and just leaning against her in silent support as she lets the blonde woman cry and grieve her son.

* * *

9 Delphine

This is the third session in a row that Cosima missed.

Delphine frowns and shakes her head, hands patting the pockets of her coat in search of her pack of cigarettes.

She has tried calling the other woman, but Cosima never picked up her phone. So then Delphine had sent her a text, asking the brunette if she wanted to talk. And another, telling Cosima that she was there, that Delphine was willing to listen, any time that she wanted to talk to her.

Cosima never replied. Or at least she hadn’t, before the meeting, but that was, ninety minutes ago. So Delphine takes out her phone again, checking if she has any missed calls. She hasn’t.

Perhaps Cosima grew tired, of her. Perhaps the brunette grew sick of Delphine’s whining, of her constant crying, of her ceaseless talking about Charlie. Perhaps she grew sick of listening to the blonde tell the same stories, over and over and over again.

It’s not like it would be that much of a surprise, really. Delphine, she has lost a lot of her former friends, after Charlie’s death. They all grew sick and tired of her. Didn’t know what to do with her, didn’t know how to handle her emotions. They didn’t understand her constant, all-consuming grief. None of them knew what Delphine was going through, none of them had understood. Which she is kind of glad for, because this is a kind of pain she wouldn’t wish on anyone else. But still, it had hurt, to have her friends suddenly call her less often. To have them not be as insistent, in their attempts at getting her to socialize. At them stopping their visits and finally dropping out of her life for good.

Delphine had thought that Cosima understood. That the brunette’s own grief was just as intense, as Delphine’s. Even though their circumstances were vastly different, the actual events that the two had gone through very much unlike each other, Delphine had still thought that the, the end result was mostly the same.

But eventually, even the people that come to the support meetings started moving on. Began to let go. Delphine knows that, that it’s a natural thing, a normal progression. But she just can’t do it. Not yet, at least. She simply isn’t ready yet, to let go of her precious little son, her lovely boy. She’d thought she was, was ready. That’s why she had invited Cosima over, and asked the woman to help her start to clear out Charlie’s old room. But then, as the two of them actually got to work, had actually started doing it, it turned out that it was still too much. That Delphine isn’t ready, to remove the traces of her son from her life. Cannot bring herself to get rid of his things.

Delphine shakes her head and puts a new cigarette between her lips, lighting it. She inhales deeply and closes her eyes, a wave of utter exhaustion washing over her. The blonde reaches up and pinches the bridge of her nose, drawing a slow breath.

She’s tired. So, so tired. Of everything, all the little things and of being so sad all the time and not being able to make and maintain friends and just, it’s all too much.

She tries to enjoy her cigarette as much as she can. Tries to put those thoughts out of her head, to just, turn it off. Just as she’s finished it and has kicked her cigarette out against the ground, her cell phone vibrates on her pocket, the short burst signalling a text message.

Delphine tilts back her head, glaring up at the sky. She’s really not in any mood, to deal with Evan, right now. She doesn’t want to talk to him, not with where her head is already at. All it will do, all talking to him will do, is remind her of Charlie, of the son they lost and how terrible things were…

That doesn’t mean she is not glad that he has started to talk to her again. She missed him, even if talking to him is still difficult, is still painful, because it brings up so many memories, for her. That’s largely the reason why they broke up, why they split. Being together just got, way too hard. Everything reminded her, of how things used to be, before. How it had been between them, how happy they were, with their little family. Evan, and her, and Charlie.

The least she can do now, is to let Evan know that it’s not a good time right now. That she will call him, once she feels a little better. In a couple of days, probably.

With a sigh, Delphine gets out her cell phone and swipes her thumb over the display to unlock it. And feels her eyes widen at the message on the screen.

> _Sry 4 ghosting. Not feeling 2 gr8. Call tmrrw? - xo C_

Delphine swallows thickly. Carefully takes her phone into both hands as she starts to type a reply, her thumbs moving quickly over the keys.

> _Don’t worry, call anytime you’d like._

She sends the message before she has time to think about it. Before she can start to obsess over her word choice, and what she wants to say, and if it might be too much or not what Cosima needs to hear, right now. Delphine lifts her hand and starts to bite down on her thumbnail, debating if she should be following her message up with another, when her cell vibrates again in her hand.

> _Meet 4 coffee? tmrrw, usual place?_

Despite her low mood, the corners of Delphine’s mouth lift, a brief smile stealing across her face at the prospect of being able to see Cosima again after such a long period of silence. It certainly helps to lift her mood. Helps a lot, with making the blonde feel a tad better.

> _Sure. When do you want to meet?_


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the late update, i wasn't feeling great last week. i'll try to also update this friday though.
> 
> additional **tw/cw** for **drugs (marijuana)** in this chapter

10 Cosima

It’s kind of a funny picture. Delphine, sprawled out on her couch like that. Looking so, soft, nearly boneless. Legs stretched out, one arm dangling off the edge, fingers resting on the floor.

Cosima leans over a little, to brush a curl of hair from the blonde’s face, after Delphine attempts to blow it away but doesn’t manage. She bites back a chuckle at the slow blink that Delphine does in reaction. How she tilts her head back a little, to be able to look up at Cosima’s face as the brunette sits in her armchair.

“You are really high right now, aren’t you?” Cosima asks her, chuckling softly when Delphine goes cross-eyed at the attempt to focus on a loc that has escaped the bun Cosima put her hair up in and is now falling over her shoulder.

“Hmm,” the blonde mumbles, her eyes half-closing.

She doesn’t think that in the time she’s known the blonde, Cosima has never seen Delphine as relaxed as she is right now. Even when they were talking about their kids, there had still been this kind of, tension, to Delphine’s frame.

There is none of that now. She’s just, gone limp. And for someone who seems to strive to control, who seems to need it to function, this is a pretty strange state, Cosima thinks. But that had been kind of the goal, in getting Delphine high: getting her to relax.

She hadn’t meant to ghost the other woman. It’s just that, sometimes, rarely, Cosima has these periods where her grief will just, knock her flat. Where it will pull her under for days. Where the brunette finds it extremely difficult, to fight her way back to the surface. When just giving up and giving in feels so tempting. Seems like the only solution.

In the end, she always finds herself glad that she doesn’t. Doesn’t give up, even if it might seem so easy in the moment. It would have been so easy, to allow her grief to pull her under one final time. It just, it kind of feels like it would be some kind of, betrayal. That Cosima would be betraying Sam, would be betraying her daughter and everything she was to her, if she ended up giving up now.

The sound of Delphine’s sigh pulls the brunette from her thoughts. She watches as the blonde reaches up and rubs her eye with the heel of her palm, her brows knitting.

“I, have these dreams sometimes,” she mumbles, and Cosima has to concentrate to be able to understand her. Her accent has gotten thicker, with the weed. It’s interesting to hear the difference in her voice.

“Where I do things, differently,” Delphine continues. “Where I don’t take a shower, and we don’t end up running late. Where I grab a chart, instead of a basket, and Charlie cannot wander off…” Delphine trails off. Cosima hears her draw a shuddering breath, sees the tears brim in Delphine’s eyes.

“Where I hold on tightly, where I don’t let go of his hand, not even for a moment.”

“Sh,” Cosima murmurs, taking Delphine’s hand and giving it a tight squeeze. “It’s okay. It wasn’t your fault, Delphine. Stop, stop torturing yourself.”

“I’m a doctor,” the blonde whispers as she turns onto her side. Looks up at Cosima as the brunette feels her blood run cold at the words, at the broken sound of the blonde’s voice.

“I’m a doctor, Cosima. I should have been able to save him. Why wasn’t I able to save him, Cosima?”

Delphine looks up at her, tears brimming with tears for a moment, before it seems like someone has flipped a switch, and from one second to the next, the other woman is breaking down completely. Cosima leans over as Delphine curls up into herself. Reaches out to carefully hold her as Delphine weeps, keening sounds of grief and anguish shaking the blonde’s frame, the intensity of her sobs heartbreaking to the brunette.

* * *

11 Delphine

If she has one more bite, she’ll start throwing up, Delphine thinks as she puts her plastic fork down.

It really is a shame, though. This is amazing cake, she thinks, but as much as she wants to finish her third piece, she’s simply too stuffed to continue.

They did way too much. But at the same time, it feels like all of them also think that it wasn’t enough, the small holiday party that their support group ended up putting together.

But honestly, the only thing that would improve it probably, would be if there wasn’t a need for a party to begin with. Because there was no support group, because none of them actually needed it. Because their beautiful little kids were still alive, were still walking this Earth, adding their own sparks of joy and love to it.

Delphine shakes her head and goes to throw out her plate, fork, and remaining piece of cake. The holidays are always rough, not just for her. For most people, it brings a family that expects them to finally start moving on, as well as memories of previous times. Holidays spent with their children. It makes their absence all the more painful, during those days, and she hasn’t really figured out a way how to deal with that yet.

As she straightens, she catches sight of Cosima, the brunette contemplating a selection of muffins, each one frosted in a different color it seems.

“Careful,” Delphine warns her as she approaches. “The green one is banana flavor.”

“In that case,” the brunette nods and reaches out to take a muffin with that color icing, sinking her teeth into it as an appreciative hum leaves her. “I love banana flavor.”

“You do?” Delphine asks, her brows lifting in surprise as her head tilts with interest. She hadn’t known that.

“Well, sometimes,” Cosima amends her statement, swallowing. “Not in like, drinks or anything. But as frosting, or candy? Sign me right up,” she chuckles before digging into her treat again and Delphine feels her lips curve into a soft smile at the sight.

Sometimes she wonders, how this woman can be real. How someone like Cosima can exist. Someone who is so happy, who has such a bubbly personality. Or at least seems to have, on the surface. Because once they actually started talking, Delphine had found that Cosima’s happiness, it’s like a thin layer of eyes over a frozen lake. Where one step too far will plunge you into an icy dark depth that you had no idea even existed.

Then again, these days Delphine thinks that’s a rather apt description of her own personality, these days. Thin layer of ice across her grief, and somehow, she keeps making the wrong step and sends herself plunging down into her grief again and again.

Part of her wonders, if that will ever change. If the ice will become thicker with time. If she’ll stop falling into the murky waters of her own feelings eventually, will stop plunging into the icy depths of her grief and pain over and over again.

Yet there is also the question if she even wants it to change. Because if it does, if she stops feeling so, grief-stricken every time she thinks of her son, every time she is in some way reminded of Charlie… She’s afraid that she will end up forgetting him. There are times when she feels like this is all she has left, of Charlie. The pain of his absence.

She’s mentioned it to Cosima, before. And others here at the group, they have shared similar feelings. It seems to be a somewhat normal thing. Like a stage of their grief that they all have to eventually make it through, on their journey of dealing with their grief and the loss of their child.

* * *

12 Cosima

“Hey, Hot Stuff!”

Delphine splutters at the greeting, nearly spitting out her coffee. Cosima reaches up and thumps the taller woman on the back as the blonde coughs softy before reaching up and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Bonjour Cosima,” she greets her, giving a small shake of her head as she holds out the brunette’s coffee order.

“Soy milk?” she asks, accepting the sugar packets from Delphine and plopping open the top of her to-go cup.

“Hm,” the blonde nods. And two pumps of caramel,” she adds, causing Cosima to grin widely at her as she tears off the edges of the sugar packets with her teeth.

“Thank you very much,” she smiles at the blonde, dumping the packets into her latte macchiato before putting the lid back on.

“How can you drink this?” Delphine asks her as they start walking down the street, the blonde sounding incredulous, amused and disgusted at the same time.

“One sip at a time, babey,” Cosima chuckles, hooking her arm through Delphine’s. And feels the other woman next to her tense up.

Cosima pauses, leaning back to search her face.

“Too much?” she asks, allowing her arm to fall away again. She doesn’t want to pressure Delphine, or come on too strong. Even after last night, she wants to, give her space, let her set the pace. Cosima can understand how it can feel very different, to flirt via the phone, versus doing so face-to-face.

“Non, I just…” Delphine starts to protest, before she deflates slightly, her shoulders slumping. “Yes,” she admits with a soft sigh. “I’m, not having the best of days,” the blonde mutters as she takes a sip of her own drink. Café au lait, if Cosima had to guess. It’s usually what she orders whenever they go to the coffee shop.

“Sorry,” Delphine apologizes, but the brunette waves her off easily.

“It’s fine,” she assures her with an easy smile before she sobers again. “Just, tell me next time, alright? So I don’t end up trampling all over your feelings.”

Delphine’s lips curve into a soft smile and she inclines her head, starting to walk again, her steps small and measured. As if she is purposefully taking her time.

“Y’know, it kind of, surprised me,” Cosima says, after a few steps. She can feel Delphine’s eyes on her, as the drums her fingers against the lid of her coffee cup.

“You know you could have told me, right? I mean, I wouldn’t have judged you, or anything,” Cosima says, looking up to search Delphine’s face.

“I know,” Delphine murmurs, sighing as she reaches up to run a hand through her hair. “The truth is, I forget, sometimes. I mean, that you understand,” she continues at Cosima’s confused look. “I’m so used to having to hide this, that it’s become kind of a reflex.”

“Hm,” Cosima hums softly. She knows what Delphine means. Has been through that part, herself. It’s not that she likes doing it, but there are times where it seems like the only viable option. The only way to protect herself. To hide who they are, what is really going on, side of them, and hope that the world around them doesn’t catch on. That, should they do so, that they will be, accepting, and not reject them, or turn violent even.

She looks over, watching Delphine as the two of them slowly make their way down the street. It takes the blonde a moment to realize that she has Cosima’s eyes on herself. Delphine looks down at her, her brows lifting in silent question.

“What?” she asks, when Cosima fails to say anything and just keeps watching her.

“Nothing,” she shrugs, feeling her lips curve into a soft smile. She really is beautiful, Cosima thinks.

“What?” Delphine repeats, stopping as a low, insecure chuckle escapes her. Cosima pauses at well.

The brunette shrugs, bouncing on the balls of her feet for a moment as she looks way. Tries to gather up her courage. And then steps forward, into Delphine’s space. Leans up and brushes her lips over the blonde’s.

Delphine’s eyes widen almost comically as she takes a staggering step back, her jaw slackening in surprise before the blonde reaches up, covering her mouth. Cosima watches her, heart beating frantically in her chest. She’s been wanting to do that, has been trying to work up the courage to kiss Delphine, but now she’s not so sure she should have done it.

“Delphine?” she asks, frowning at the blonde. The nervous butterflies in Cosima’s stomach slowly get replaced by a sinking feeling, one she knows pretty well. The one that comes with the realization that she’s just made a massive mistake.

“Cosima…” the blonde breathes, her brows dipping in confusion. “What… why…” she stammers, looking away as her breath leaves her in a rush.

Cosima swallows thickly, trying to get her racing heart back under control, trying to get a grip of her own feelings. This, is not the first time she’s been turned down. She can live with it. It’ll be fine.

“What do you mean, why?” she asks Delphine still. Swallows and forces herself to look at the blonde. “I thought I’d been, pretty clear last night,” Cosima reminds her.

“Clear?” Delphine repeats, the blonde’s head whipping around to stare at Cosima in utter confusion. “Wait, last night?” she asks, causing Cosima to let out a huff and step back from her.

“You know,” she starts with a shake of her head. “You could have always just told me that you’re not interested,” she tells Delphine, feeling so utterly idiotic, for her actions. For getting her hopes up.

She’d really thought that they had something. That there was something, something growing, between them. Between Delphine and her. If she’s not interested in Cosima that way, well, Delphine had plenty of opportunity to tell her so, when they were messaging on Tinder last night.

Stumbling upon the blonde’s profile had come as a surprise. Cosima had just been mindlessly scrolling, not really looking for a hookup but just passing time, when she’d suddenly found herself looking at a very familiar face. Had found the picture of Delphine, laying on her stomach in bed, only clad in a pair of dark panties, her expressive eyes lined with dark eyeliner as the blonde looked straight at the camera. It had been, a very nice picture. One that had made Cosima’s mouth run dry as she sat up sharply on her couch.

She hadn’t known, before. Hadn’t even considered for a moment that Delphine might not be straight. There’s never been anything that gave it away, the blonde had only ever talked about her last relationship, the one with Charlie’s father. She’d never played the pronoun game, never alluded to an attraction towards women.

But it had been right there, on Cosima’s screen. “Bisexual”, on Delphine’s profile. And Cosima had thought that, perhaps this was easier, for the other women. To see women now. Because of how different it would be, from her last relationship. That it maybe helped keep the memories at bay.

She’d contemplated what to do for a bit, before deciding to just, message Delphine. And then the blonde had replied, and they’d gone back and forth for nearly three hours, until Cosima ended up falling asleep. Thinking back to those messages, Delphine had definitely been flirting with her, and so had Cosima. It had been a bit, weird, at the start, because the blonde never mentioned that they already knew each other. Never talked about any of the things that Cosima had previously shared, with her. But Cosima had let her take the lead, had figured that she’d give Delphine space to decide what she was comfortable with. And it had been, nice. Very nice. Being complimented by a smoking hot woman, that had definitely done wonders for Cosima’s ego.

“I have no idea, what you’re talking about.”

“Right,” Cosima lets out a huff and shakes her head, her ego smarting at Delphine’s words. “So we just, what? We pretend that none of it happened? That you were drunk and didn’t know what you were doing? Gimme some guidance here, ‘cause I’m lost.”

“Whatever are you on about, Cosima?” Delphine asks, her voice rising.

“You!” Cosima snaps, whirling around to glare at Delphine, her anger rising. “You, telling me I look cute in boxers. You telling me you’ve always wondered what running your hands through dreads would feel like. You-” she cuts herself off sharply, Cosima’s cheeks flaming as she remembers the more explicit messages.

Delphine’s mouth opens, her lips moving silently before she closes it again. Draws a slow breath.

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” she repeats slowly as Cosima’s fists curl at her sides. “I have never said anything of the sort. Not to you, not to anyone.”

“Right,” Cosima snorts with a sharp shake of her head. “You know, I’m aware of gay panic,” she tells Delphine, some of the fight going out of her as disappointment takes over. “I just, I didn’t think that you’d hit me with that,” she mutters, frowning down at her coffee. “I really didn’t peg you for that kind of asshole,” she adds, turning sharply to walk away, before she can start crying in front of Delphine. That’s really the last thing she needs, for the blonde to see just how deeply she’s hurt her.

She’s been so stupid. Has been such an idiot, Cosima thinks as she walks down the street, shaking her head as she tries to blink back her tears. She should have known that this was going to happen, that last night had been way too good to be true.

Her thoughts get cut off half a block later, at the feeling of someone grabbing her wrist. Cosima whirls around, glaring up at Delphine, the blonde’s cheeks flushed. She probably had to hurry, to catch up with Cosima. Or the blush is still a remainder of the surprise kiss Cosima laid on her.

“I am, so stupid,” Cosima shakes her head, trying to bite back the tears of humiliation burning in her eyes.

“Look, I…” Delphine starts, swallowing thickly as she takes a step closer and lowers her voice. “I’m sorry, Cosima. If I hurt your feelings. But Cosima, I am not gay. You’re, you’re a great person, really, but I’m not…”

The brunette lets out a huff of annoyance at the new denial.

“Yeah, whatever,” she says, feeling incredibly tired all of a sudden. She reaches up to rub a hand over her face, before looking back up at Delphine.

“Just, why?” she asks her, the question echoing in her mind. “Why did you toy with me like that?”

“Cosima,” the blonde starts, closing her eyes briefly. “I know I am repeating myself,” Delphine continues as she opens them again, “but I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about,” she insists. “If I said something, if any of my actions during our conversations have led you to believe that I-” Delphine pauses, licking her lips as she casts a nervous look around. “Then I am sorry,” she continues, her voice even lower. “I am truly sorry. I never intended to make you think that I, had any kind of, romantic feelings, for you.”

Cosima’s jaw clenches, her knuckles turning white as her hands curl into fists again. She gives a sharp shake of her head and reaches into her pocket, digging out her phone. Unlocks it, and opens up Tinder.

“I haven’t been with anyone in a while,” she starts to read after she’s found the thread of messages she exchanged with Delphine the night before, “but I think I’m ready to take the plunge again.”

Delphine’s brows dip slightly as Cosima looks up at her.

“You’re really cute. I like the boxers. I take it there was no matching bra?”

This time, Delphine’s eyes widen slightly, her cheeks flushing again.

“I really like your smile. I hope I’m not being too forward, but would you consider meeting me? For some stress relief?”

The taller woman gapes at her as she vehemently shakes her head.

“I never wrote that!” she exclaims.

“’Course you didn’t,” Cosima nods and turns her phone after selecting Delphine’s profile. “I’m guessing you have a twin sister. One that goes by your name online?”

The blonde’s eyes widen even more, something that Cosima honestly hadn’t thought possible. Her grip on her coffee slackens and the cup falls to the ground as Delphine reaches out and carefully takes Cosima’s phone, gaping at the picture of herself only clad in her underwear. Cosima watches her hands shake as the other woman taps her finger on the sceen, selecting the uploaded pictures. Scrolls through them, Delphine’s face growing paler by the second. Okay, something, something is definitely not adding up here.

“Cosima…” Delphine breathes. Swallows loudly and gives a small shake of her head. “Cosima, that is not me,” she whispers, pressing a hand over her mouth, muffling a curse.

“Who is it, then?” Cosima asks. She takes back her phone, locking it, and puts it back into her coat pocket, not willing to look at it right now. She doesn’t need another reminder of what she’d been looking at, last night.

“I don’t-” Delphine starts, before stopping herself. Apparently she’s realizing that Cosima was being sarcastic. Good, at least she has that much brain left.

The blonde shakes her head, looking away.

“It, it could be my cousin.”

Cosima lets out a laugh at that.

“Your cousin? Seriously?” she asks, but Delphine gives her a look that makes her pause. Cosima slowly bends down to set down her own coffee before she straightens. Crosses her arms and watches Delphine.

“So that cousin, what? They made a Tinder profile, in your name? And are messaging people? For what purpose, catfishing?”

“She… she’s been, pushy,” Delphine frowns. She looks down at her hands before she crosses her arms again. “She keeps telling me that it is time I, got back on the horse… I, I had no idea, I swear…”

“How did she even get those pictures?” Cosima asks, still not quite believing Delphine’s story, even as she can feel doubt creep into her mind. It would certainly explain the blonde’s confusion as to why Cosima had kissed her. If they never even talked to each other last night… Oh God, she went through Delphine’s semi-nudes, and the blonde had no idea those were on the Internet?

“She’s a photographer. She actually took them,” Delphine shrugs. “I mean the, the, half-naked ones,” she adds as she draws a slow breath. “She was trying to get the lighting right in her new studio and I was considering getting pictures for Evan, for our anniversary. So I modeled for her, she got to light up her place right, I got free pictures out of the deal. The other ones, those look like stuff I posted, on Instagram.”

“Instagram,” Cosima repeats, the sinking feeling back in her stomach, growing by the second. She watches as Delphine pulls out her phone, her thumb moving across her screen.

“Here,” she murmurs, turning it to show Cosima.

There it is. One of the pictures that Cosima saw last night. Of Delphine’s reflection in a high rise window, looking out over a city. Cosima had guessed that it was taken at a hotel room, at the time. It doesn’t look like the place they live in.

“Montreal,” Delphine tells her. “I took that, when I went back for my parents’ anniversary a couple of months ago. I stayed at a hotel. Couldn’t fathom being in the house, not when the last time I was there…” she trails off with a shuddering breath.

The text underneath the image is in French. Cosima doesn’t know what it says, she doesn’t speak enough of the language to translate on the fly, to understand what the caption says without the use of a dictionary.

“So you’re saying that, what? Your cousin made a catfish account, in your name, and now she’s, what? Chatting up people for you to hook up with?” Cosima asks, still trying to wrap her mind around this turn of events. It sounds utterly ridiculous. But then there is the way that Delphine reacted, to both the kiss, and to Cosima showing her the profile. She’d seemed genuinely shocked by it, had seemed truly surprised.

“Maybe,” Delphine shrugs, taking back her phone. She frowns down at the display briefly before giving a shake of her head. Lock it and puts it back into her pocket.

“How did she get the bisexual thing?” Cosima asks, still not quite convinced. “I mean, if your cousin wanted to have a selection of people ready for you to, to chose from…” the brunette trails of, searching Delphine’s face. The blonde’s cheeks have turned crimson and she cannot quite meet Cosima’s eyes.

“I, I told her about, some…”

“Some, what?” Cosima presses, the sinking feeling in her stomach turning to lead.

“I was drunk, okay?” Delphine hisses, running a hand through her hair. “It was a, a college party. I was drunk, it never happened again, not with anyone else.”

Cosima watches her. Watches Delphine’s green eyes dart away again, the way her jaw has set.

“Did it happen with the same person more than one?” she asks, feeling utterly numb as Delphine closes her eyes and a ragged breath leaves the blonde.

Okay. Alright.

“Okay,” Cosima nods, shifting. “Right,” she shakes her head, a humorless chuckle leaving her. “Well, I guess you and your cousin have some stuff to discuss, huh?”

“Cosima-”

“Don’t,” she snaps, pulling back her hand when Delphine reaches for her. “Save it, Delphine,” she tells the blonde. “I, just, just leave me alone, alright?!” Cosima shakes her head.

She turns on her heel and starts walking, tears burning in her eyes when she realizes that Delphine is not following her. That the blonde isn’t trying to stop her this time, the brunette’s heart clenching painfully in her chest as she does her best to bite back a sob.


	5. Chapter 5

13 Delphine

Part of her absolutely balks at the idea. This, it’s not her fault. Delphine wasn’t the one who did this. It had been her cousin who’d made the profile. Krystal, who had messaged Cosima after matching with her. Krystal who made the other woman believe that there was something between them. It should be Krystal here, apologizing to Cosima, and not Delphine.

Yet here Delphine is. Standing in front of Cosima’s place, with a bouquet of flowers. Five yellow lilies and a pink tulip in the center, because yellow is the flower of friendship and lilies are delicate flowers and Delphine wants Cosima to know that she sees their friendship as something delicate and wonderful and precious and that she is very sorry. And tulips have been used before to signify new beginnings, which Delphine is really hoping for, here. She wants to start over so badly. To put this whole stupid thing behind them and go back to being friends with Cosima.

But as much as Delphine might want to make up with her, Cosima hasn’t been talking to Delphine for over a week. She hasn’t answered the three calls Delphine made, at the beginning, nor has she responded to any of the blonde’s messages. And the blonde is starting to get kind of desperate, here.

Someone else might wonder if she was doing too much. If Delphine is overthinking this, if she’s being ridiculous. It’s just a friendship, after all, and not even a particularly long one, at that. She’s only known Cosima for a couple of months, after all.

But the thing is, Delphine has lost so many of her old friends, after… after losing Charlie. They didn’t know, how to deal with her overwhelming grief. Didn’t know what to do, what to say to her, how to react. So things got increasingly awkward and as time passed, people began expecting her to, bounce back. To go back to the way she had been, before. Before her son died, before she lost her precious Charlie. Before everything she’d ever held dear got ripped away from her, before someone tore her heart out through her chest.

But there has been no going back, no returning to normal. Not after something as horrible as this.

And Cosima, she had been the first person to really understand. To understand what Delphine had gone through. She had never made Delphine feel bad, for the grief that the blonde still feels, for how intense it is, even though it has been years since she lost her son. Cosima never made her feel like Delphine had to be someone else, to deserve her friendship. She’d been there for her, had shared her own pain with her, and Delphine had actually gotten to be there for someone in exchange. That had felt good, she’d felt useful, for once. It hadn’t been a kind of relationship where she felt she was constantly burdening the other person and that they didn’t understand what she was going through. It had felt almost normal, and Delphine was so happy that she had found someone like Cosima.

God, she could just kill her cousin. What the hell had Krystal been thinking? Besides it having been such an immense invasion of her own privacy, a massive violation of Delphine’s trust, on top of all of that, it had to be Cosima that she’d tried to chat up. Of all the people that had Tinder accounts, it had to be the brunette that Krystal found and matched with. Of course it had, because apparently, Delphine’s life has become some ridiculous soap opera.

She shakes her head, raising her hand to knock on Cosima’s door again.

“Cosima?” she tries, waiting, staring at the dark wood. There is no answer, again. There hasn’t been for the past ten minutes. That’s how long Delphine has been standing here, making a complete and utter fool of herself.

Cosima could be inside. She could merely been ignoring Delphine, hoping that the woman would go away eventually. Delphine could just leave the flowers, with a note, for later. For when Cosima checks her door, or in case she is actually, for when the brunette returns. Someone might steal the flowers, though, but at this point, Delphine doesn’t really think that that would make that much of a difference. Cosima already isn’t talking to her, so how much worse could things could get?

The blonde tilts her head back to stare at the ceiling and gives a resigned sigh of defeat. She steps back from the door and sets down the flowers to be able to look through her purse in search of a pen and some paper, so she can leave a note for Cosima.

“Delphine?”

The blonde straightens at the sound of her name, her heart jumping into her throat as she turns and sees Cosima hovering by the stairs, pausing, her brows knitted in confusion and annoyance. The brunette lets go of the banister and crosses her arms over her chest and Delphine has to bite back another sigh.

“What are you doing here?” Cosima asks, her voice flat. “I thought I told you-”

“Yes, yes,” Delphine murmurs, waving her off. She ducks her head sheepishly, her eyes falling onto the flowers sitting on the floor.

This was a mistake. She shouldn’t have come. Delphine should have left Cosima alone. Should have accepted her wishes and respected the brunette’s boundaries and not attempted to contact her, not tried to apologize to her.

“I’m sorry,” she mutters before closing her eyes. “I mean, not for… Well, for that, too,” she frowns, reaching up to rub a hand over her forehead. “But I meant, I’m sorry, for this. I should have listened to you, I shouldn’t have come here,” Delphine continues, drawing a slow breath. “You said you wanted me to leave you alone, I should have respected that.”

Cosima takes a step closer, and another, leaving over a little.

“Are those…” she asks, her dark eyes widening at the flowers. Delphine nods, bending down to pick them up, hesitating before she holds them out to Cosima.

“I am sorry,” she tells her, forcing herself to meet the other woman’s dark eyes. “I have, talked, to my cousin. Yelled at her, actually,” she admits with a low chuckle. “She’s deleted the profile. And I told her that, if she every does anything like this again, that I will never talk to her again in my life.”

“Good,” Cosima nods, her expression darkening before she surprises Delphine by accepting the flowers. Cradles them carefully, tracing her fingers over the petals of one of the lilies. When she doesn’t say anything else, Delphine draws a slow breath before giving a nod.

“Okay,” she murmurs, swallowing thickly at the realization that this is it. This really is it, the end of her friendship with a wonderful, amazing woman that she has been so incredibly lucky to have in her life, for however short that period has been.

“Thank you,” she tells the smaller woman, watching as Cosima looks up in confusion. “For, being my friend, for a while there,” she adds, trying to blink away the tears that are gathering in her eyes. “It, it meant a lot to me. It really helped, to have someone who understands…” Delphine trails off with a shuddering breath. She looks away, her jaw clenching as she tries to get a grip on her emotions.

“Bye Cosima.” - “Do you want to come in?”

Her eyes widen in surprise at the question. Cosima shifts, adjusting the shoulder strap of her bag as she tilts her head at Delphine, watching her.

“Are you, are you sure?” Delphine asks. That’s the last thing she expected. She doesn’t want to make Cosima any more uncomfortable than this whole ordeal already has. She doesn’t want her to feel like she has to invite her in if she doesn’t want to.

“I, uh…” the brunette starts, her shoulders slumping. “It’s, not a great week,” she tells Delphine, who gives a slow nod. She gets it. It hasn’t been a good week for her, either.

Cosima looks away, her jaw working.

“It’s, uh, it’s the week I found out, about Sammy…”

“Oh,” Delphine breathes, her eyes widening as she shifts, barely able to catch herself in time and pull back the hand that had already been reaching for Cosima. Had already been ready to squeeze her hand and hug her and comfort her. But that’s, probably too much. At least for right now.

“I’m here,” she tells Cosima, her voice soft as she searches the brunette’s face. “For whatever you need, I’m here.”

Cosima reaches up to rub a hand over her face and straightens. “I could use someone to just, to watch a dumb movie with me.”

“Sure,” Delphine nods eagerly, stepping aside to allow the brunette to unlock the door. Cosima fiddles with her keys for a moment, opening the door and pushing it open to allow Delphine inside. She wonders if she should ask again, if this is really what Cosima wants.

But then Cosima tilts her head at her and raises a brow and Delphine gives her a soft smile, stepping inside her apartment, Cosima following behind.

“What movie do you have in mind?” Delphine asks her.

“I don’t know,” the brunette says, shaking her head as she kicks the door closed behind them. “Just something dumb and mindless and maybe, catastrophic.”

“Catastrophic?” Delphine repeats, her brows dipping slightly.

“I’m really not in the mood, for happily-ever-after bullshit,” Cosima scoffs. “Feels more like a, doom and gloom and end-of-the-world kind of day.”

“Ah,” Delphine nods in understanding, intimately familiar with that particular feeling. “One of those, huh?”

“Yeah,” Cosima confirms with a slow nod, taking off her jacket before gesturing to the TV. “Why don’t just have a look, see what there is on offer, while I put these in some water?”

“Sure,” Delphine murmurs, shrugging out of her own jacket before she grabs the remote to turn on the TV and check Netflix as she hears Cosima rummage around in her kitchen, looking for a vase.

* * *

14 Cosima

Delphine’s green eyes are sparkling. She looks, absolutely amazing. Cosima doesn’t think she’s ever seen the blonde smile like this. Has never seen her so happy.

“It was, it was amazing, Cosima,” Delphine says, tilting her head back as she pulls up her legs onto Cosima’s couch.

“Yeah?” the brunette asks, chuckling softly.

It’s good, to see her like this. So happy, so full of life.

A week ago, she’d been so worried, about going back to work. Had been scared, of the stress of an Emergency Room. About seeing patients again, about having to work with colleagues that knew why she had been out for such a long time.

It has worried Cosima as well. That it might be, too much. That it would overwhelm her. That it could send her spiraling again. That, despite them promising that Delphine wouldn’t have to deal with major traumas, that she would start off slowly, with only a few short shifts, not on consecutive days, that despite all it might still be too much for the blonde.

The first day was rough. Despite it having been relatively slow, it had still been almost too much. Delphine called her at almost eleven at night, sniffling. They let her deal with minor injuries at work, clean some cuts, stitch people up, that kind of stuff. One of her patients had been a four year old boy, in need of stitches after he took a fall, and that had dug up a lot of memories.

But now, seeing Delphine after her first shift with a major trauma, the blonde looks like she is glowing. She looks to be on top of the world, look to be utterly happy. Totally giddy, and maybe a bit drunk on pure adrenaline.

“I thought I would freeze. That it would be too soon. That I would mess up. But I didn’t.”

Cosima bites back a laugh and a comment on how she is pretty sure that the woman’s patient probably appreciated that. That the blonde hadn’t frozen up. That she’d been able to do her job.

“You feeling good?” she asks her, searching Delphine’s face, just to make absolutely sure. That they had to pull her into a trauma hadn’t been planned and was due to another patient that hadn’t come in as one suddenly collapsing.

“Yes,” Delphine nods, running her hand through her rather messy curls. “I think I honestly forgot,” she chuckles.

“Forgot?” Cosima asks as she stands to get up to grab both of them something to drink from her fridge, before she rejoins Delphine on her couch. She hands the blonde a bottle of water, watching as Delphine takes off the cap and takes a few sips, her eyes closing.

“How good it can feel,” the blonde says as she opens them again. “Running a trauma, working as a team. Saving a life.”

“Sounds, intense,” the brunette offers.

“It was!” Delphine exclaims, grinning widely at Cosima. She shifts, pulling her legs under herself. “And also really amazing.”

“I’m glad you had a great day,” Cosima tells her, touching Delphine’s hand that is resting on the back of her couch. “And I hope that there’ll be many, many more.”

“Me, too,” Delphine replies with an easy smile, before she sobers. “Thank you, Cosima,” she adds, growing slightly more serious. “For the other night.”

“Oh,” Cosima breathes. She swallows thickly. She had kind of, blocked that one from her mind. Doesn’t really want to think about the other night, when a teary Delphine had called her, trying desperately to keep it together and Cosima had tried her best to help, to calm her down and distract her and just, be there for her.

“I, I know that it was, bad,” the blonde says, turning her hand to catch Cosima’s fingers. Gives them a gentle squeeze. “I’m sorry, for worrying you.”

“I was worried,” Cosima admits. “But I’m also glad that you called me. I rather worry, but know that someone is there for you, that you’re getting some kind of support.”

Delphine offers her a soft smile, before suddenly leaning forward. Cosima’s eyes widen in surprise before she feels Delphine’s lips on her own, the brunette woman tensing at the contact before her eyes flutter shut.

This, this is a bad idea. A really, really bad idea. She knows it. Cosima, her own heart, it’s still really, really fragile. She knows that, is very aware of it. It’s the reason why she hasn’t dated, since Sam. Only had a couple of one night stands, but nothing that went beyond that. She couldn’t think about getting involved, with anyone. Not when so much of her attention, of her emotions, is still occupied by her daughter and the pain of her absence.

And then there is the matter of the fact that this is Delphine that they’re talking about. Delphine, who Cosima has been growing increasingly close to. Delphine, who means a lot to Cosima. As a friend. As someone who understands the pain that Cosima is going through. Who listens to Cosima talk about her child, who will help cheer her up, when she is having an especially bad day, or just lets her cry about all of it, if that is what Cosima needs.

Delphine, who has outright rejected Cosima before. The blonde has pretty much freaked out, when Cosima first kissed her. During that… episode, the one with the tinder profile. Cosima is hesitant to call it a misunderstanding, or a mistake, or something of the sort. As far as she is concerned, it had been outright deceit, and a planned one at that. And while Cosima knows that it hadn’t been Delphine who set it up, while she gets that the blonde had also gotten hurt in the process, it is still not something that Cosima is completely over just yet. The wound of that still stings. Still smarts, the thought that Cosima got her hopes up like that, that she allowed herself to actually feel the attraction towards Delphine, only to have it all crushed like that.

To be completely honest, she doesn’t think that she’d be able to get over something like this a second time around. Because as much as Cosima has been trying, and oh, has she tried, to get over her ridiculous crush that she developed for Delphine, to quell any budding romantic feelings that she has for the other woman, it has been, difficult. Cosima thought that all Delphine wanted, all she was interested in, was a friendship with Cosima. So the brunette had tried to be her friend. Tried very much to be happy about that much. To be grateful that Delphine still wanted her in her life at all. That the blonde didn’t run for the hills screaming and cut Cosima out of her life, that seems like a small miracle. And Cosima should probably be more than happy about that fact. Should be overjoyed to have been given as much. And she is. She considers herself immensely lucky, to have been given a sort of, second chance. Delphine, she means a lot to her, and Cosima doesn’t want to risk losing their friendship. Doesn’t want to lose the one friend that actually seems to understand her, and where she is coming from. Where she is, in her grieving process.

Cosima swallows thickly, leaning back to watch Delphine carefully. The blonde’s green eyes have widened almost comically and there’s a blush spreading across her cheeks as she looks away. She watches Delphine press her fingers over her lips before the tall woman stands. Takes a few steps, arms crossing over her middle as Cosima hears the blonde let out a shuddering breath.

“Cosima…” she starts, turning around again. She briefly meets the brunette’s eyes, before her own skirt away again.

“Yeah,” she murmurs, clearing her throat. Reaches up to push her glasses back up on her nose and then rubs the back of her neck. Cosima draws a slow breath, silently apologizing to her battered heart for what is probably about to happen. Tries to brace herself as best as she can, for what she is pretty sure will be coming.

“I know,” she tells Delphine. “It’s fine,” she adds with a forced smile. “Emotional high. I get it.”

The other woman’s brows twitch as Delphine shifts. She opens her mouth but doesn’t speak, her arms dropping limply to her sides, before she crosses them again, lower this time. Almost looks like she is, hugging herself.

“Right,” she mutters, sounding surprisingly defeated. It actually makes Cosima’s heart ache, to hear that tone.

The brunette shifts, rubbing her hands together as she tries to gather her courage. Tries to find the right words, for what she wants to do, wants to say.

“Perhaps we, uh, we may need to, set some rules?” she suggests, shifting again. She feels utterly uncomfortable, doing this now.

“It’s a bad time to do this, I know. And we don’t have to do it right now, of course,” she hastens to assure Delphine. “But I feel that it would probably be good for us to figure out where our boundaries are. What lines there are, for us, that we, rather not be crossed.”

“Like when you kissed me?”

Cosima lets out a snort, shaking her head as she feels indignation rise inside of her. For Delphine to throw that in her face…

“Look, I was operating under the assumption that you and I had spent the better part of the previous evening flirting with each other, okay?” she reminds the blonde. “I never would have done that if I thought it would make you the least bit uncomfortable. I didn’t do it before, nor have I done it again. I have kept my hands and mouth firmly to myself, so can you please stop rubbing that in my face already?”

Delphine closes her eyes for a moment, her chest moving as she takes a deep breath.

“I know,” she murmurs, deflating. “I’m sorry, that was, that was low,” she admits. Pauses as she tilts her head, gesturing towards the end of the couch. The one that Cosima is not occupying. The brunette swallows and scoots further back into her own corner before she nods. Watches Delphine slowly walk over and sink down onto the edge of the couch, pressed against the armrest.

“I’m sorry,” she apologizes softly. “For bringing it up again, I mean,” Delphine clarifies. “I know that this whole fiasco, it wasn’t your fault, not at all. And I know that you have been very respectful, of my boundaries. Before, that thing, and after it, as well,” she tells Cosima with a soft smile.

“Thanks,” the brunette nods. Feels kind of relieved, as well, that Delphine doesn’t seem to think that she’s been a creep or anything like that. That she actually thinks that Cosima has been respectful, of her boundaries, that she doesn’t feel like Cosima has been continuously trying to come onto her. Not that the brunette has, definitely not. But Cosima, she’s kind of a natural flirt, even unintentionally, so she was a bit concerned, that Delphine may have felt uncomfortable at times. To hear the other woman tell her that none of Cosima’s actions have come across as inappropriate, that’s actually a huge relief.

“It’s just…” Delphine starts and Cosima can hear her draw a deep breath. “Lately, these past few days, especially…” the blonde says haltingly. “I, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that kiss,” she suddenly says, the words leaving her in a big rush. Cosima’s eyes widen in stunned surprise as she sees the blonde blush furiously.

“Oh?” Cosima breathes, feeling herself blush as well as hope rises in her chest, the brunette not wanting to push it back down just yet. “Like in a, in a… not bad way?”

Delphine rises again, pacing the length of the room, one arm wrapped around her middle, the other raised as she bites down on her thumbnail. As a nervous gesture, it worries Cosima somewhat. She’s only ever really seen it, when the blonde has been especially anxious. That she’s feeling like this now, in Cosima’s presence, it does worry her. Even if she can understand it, Cosima’s own heart racing in her chest.

“I, I don’t… I don’t know,” Delphine mutters with a sharp shake of her head. “I never… I’ve only ever dated men,” she says, casting a glance at Cosima. “Cisgender men. And yes, I had sex with another woman, in college, but it never… it was, purely physical, for me.”

Cosima swallows thickly and inclines her head. She makes it a point to not judge others. Especially for the way they experience attraction and how they go about their romantic lives. Whatever two or more consenting adults do in their free time, that’s purely their business. Human lives, they’re incredibly complex. And it’s not Cosima’s job, or her right, to judge anyone for how they seek to fulfill what they believe to be their sexual destiny.

“So, is this like that, too?” she asks Delphine, watching the blonde intently to gauge her reaction. To be able to tell, if she’s going to tell the truth, or if she might end up trying to lie, to Cosima. Which the brunette doesn’t really expect, but still.

“Is this just a physical thing?” Cosima inquires, holding her breath.

Delphine’s brows twitch at the question and she reaches up, raking her hand through her curls before she lets them fall down.

“Yes. No. I, I don’t know…” she trails off, drawing a shuddering breath. Cosima feels her heart sinking as she watches Delphine look away, the blonde’s jaw working as she clenches her teeth.

“No,” Delphine suddenly whispers, and Cosima feels herself perking up. “No, I, it’s not merely physical attraction.”

Cosima’s jaw drops in surprise, her heart hammering in her chest. She hadn’t wanted to get her hopes up too much, but even as she tries to grab onto her feelings and shove them back into the drawer that they’ve burst from, it’s way too late, after she heard those words coming from Delphine. The lock that Cosima attempted to put on that part of her feelings, it’s been completely destroyed. Delphine, with one simple sentence, she’s effectively taken a stick of dynamite and blown the whole dresser to pieces, and Cosima doesn’t there there’s any chance of her getting a handle on her feelings fast enough to prevent herself from falling even more for the blonde than she already has.

“Okay,” she breathes, clearing her throat. “So, so what do we do now?” Cosima asks Delphine, feeling utterly out of her depth. She feels, kind of stuck, actually. Stuck between wanting more, wanting to pursue something with Delphine, and also knowing that she’s not ready for it.

Cosima, she’s not in any place right now, to have a serious relationship. Especially not one that involves Delphine. Not one where Cosima is so incredibly scared of doing the wrong thing, of messing it up. Not where the stakes are as high as they are with this, where messing it up will be incredibly painful for her, as well as the blonde.

“I don’t know,” Delphine sighs, her shoulders slumping as she looks at Cosima, wearing an expression of helplessness and confusion. “I know that a relationship, that’s not… it’s not really a good idea,” the blonde admits with a small shake of her head. But, at the same time…” she continues, inhaling deeply.

“Yeah, I know,” Cosima nods as she swallows. “Maybe we should just… I don’t know, maybe, take it like, one day at a time?” she suggests, not entirely sure what that would even mean.

“Maybe,” Delphine nods, searching Cosima’s face. “And I do agree, with what you said before. About us setting boundaries. We should do that.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Cosima chuckles darkly before she frowns down at her hands. “Just… Before we do anything, I kind of, need you to understand something, about this.”

“Hm?” Delphine hums, searching her face intently. “What? What is it, Cosima?”

The brunette licks her lips. Draws a deep breath, trying to gather her courage.

“This… this can’t be something that you do, to figure yourself out,” she tells Delphine, allowing a shuddering breath to escape her. “I can’t be some sort of toy, for you, Delphine,” she continues. “And I’m not saying you’d use me,” she hastens to add when she sees the other woman’s expression morph into one of anger at her words.

“I’m just telling you that, if you’re not serious about this, if you don’t actually intend to have something come off of this, then please, for my own sake, tell me now, and don’t string me along.”

“I’m not,” Delphine protests, hurrying over to kneel down in front of Cosima. Takes her hands and gives them a tight squeeze, her hold just this side of painful. “Cosima, I… I, like you. I like you a lot,” she tells her. “I care for you, Cosima, and I don’t want to hurt you. Please believe me when I tell you that I would never intentionally hurt you, or string you along. Please, Cosima, please believe me. Can you, can you do that?”

“Hm,” Cosima nods weakly, blinking hard against the moisture gathering in her eyes. “Okay. I, I believe you,” she tells her. “I just, I needed you to understand this,” she shrugs, pulling on the sleeves of her shirt and pulling the ends over her hands, for a moment. She feels ridiculously exposed, right now, just having said as much as she has, to Delphine. “And I get that you, may be in a similar position, as well. So please know that I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t hurt you, either. Not intentionally.”

“Thank you, Cosima,” Delphine murmurs, giving her a gentle smile as she looks up at the brunette, before growing serious again. “I do care about you, you know?”

“Yeah, ditto, obvs,” Cosima responds, unable to stop herself from grinning when the ridiculous phrasing makes Delphine let out a soft laugh.

Cosima looks down at where the blonde has taken hold of her hands again and swallows heavily before deciding that she should just follow her impulse. So Cosima carefully extracts her hands, but before Delphine can pull away, she takes the blonde’s again, carefully intertwining their fingers. Watches as the blonde’s eyes widen in surprise as Delphine looks down at their hands. She gives Cosima’s hand an experimental careful squeeze, and the brunette presses back, feeling warmth spread within her chest.

* * *

15 Delphine

Delphine frowns down at her phone, her thread of messages back and forth with Cosima pulled up on the small screen.

The blonde lets out a deep sigh and slumps back in her chair, reaching up to run a hand through her curls. She meant to text Cosima, to cancel their dinner date. Or at least ask the brunette, if they could change it to a friend one. Go somewhere else, where there wouldn’t be as much pressure, on her.

But every time she goes to type, her eyes find the last text Cosima sent her earlier, and Delphine feels her heart clench every time at the blatant joy and excitement in the brunette’s words. She’s been looking forward to tonight so much. To going out, to going on an actual date, with each other, and Delphine feels absolutely horrid for even considering cancelling on her.

But today has been, difficult, to put it mildly, and she’s not in the mood to go out. And even more than that, she’s not in the mood for anything romantic, at all.

Cosima and her, they promised each other that they would be honest with one another, about their feelings and their headspace. That they would let each other know, if something was too much for them, if they weren’t ready for something just yet. Yet Delphine still couldn’t help but feel like if she did, if she messaged her, then she’d end up disappointing the brunette. Will end up hurting the other woman’s feelings, which is certainly something that Delphine would rather avoid.

With a frown, she changes her hold on her phone and lets her thumbs move over the keys as she quickly types out her message.

“I know you were looking forward to tonight, but do you think that we could change it to a simple diner, instead of a fancy restaurant?”

Before she can even think twice about it, or start obsessing over her choice of words and how Cosima might receive them, Delphine quickly presses “Send”, her green eyes widening as the little checkmark pops up and immediately turns blue, signaling that Cosima read her message.

Delphine shifts, her teeth worrying at her lower lip. She watches the three gray dots pop up, indicating that Cosima is typing. They disappear again, but then no message shows up. Delphine’s brows dip in confusion, before she sees the gray dots make another appearance. The blonde tilts her head, wondering what may be taking Cosima so long, before she realizes that the other woman is probably doing exactly what Delphine was doing a couple of minutes ago: composing one message after the other and then discarding all of them, because none of them sound right, none of them actually manage to convey her thoughts and feelings properly, while also not running the risk of potentially hurting the recipient.

The French woman shakes her head, locking her phone before she puts it back into her pocket, deciding that she is better off checking it once Cosima has actually sent her message, instead of spending the time staring at the screen, watching her type. It will certainly do Delphine’s nerves more good to wait until Cosima has come up with someone that she is comfortable sending.

“Break over?” the clerk at the front desk asks as Delphine returns, looking through the stack of charts for something easy, something that won’t be too intense. Something she can deal with, with her head screwed on as wonky as it is, at the moment.

“Something like that,” Delphine mutters, looking up at the board, just to get a feeling for how slammed they currently are.

She’s a bit surprised, by the lack of comment. It took the guy a while, to understand the concept of “pager breaks”. She rarely makes use of those, feeling like she works in an emergency department and she should be able to deal with the requirements of that. When she does, though, it is all the more important that she not get paged.

“I have, suspected gastritis in 2, a bad case of road rash in 4, and-”

“I’m not signing charts,” Delphine shakes her head when she manages to catch onto the fact that the guy is a trying to pass his cases to her. The resident pauses, mouth open before his brows dip into a frown.

He’s new. Delphine doesn’t think they’ve actually worked a shift together yet since he started. She’s seen him during handover a few times, but never really interacted with him. Or with any of the other residents or interns. She tends to stay away from them, since she does not sign charts or actively teaches, at the moment. Doesn’t want them to get the idea to run to her, with any problems, because that is really the last thing she needs on top of her other work.

“You’re an Attending, right?” he asks her. “Aren’t you supposed to sign my charts, make sure I’m not accidentally killing people?”

“Present to someone else,” Delphine tells him, grabbing the chart of a patient that walked into a glass door.

“Seriously?” the guy says, sounding incredulous. Delphine arches a brow at him before stepping around him to go and find her patient. He should be in sutures, which is at the other end, away from the trauma rooms. Thank God for small mercies.

“Doc Delphine doesn’t sign resident’s charts,” she hears the clerk tell the resident as she starts walking away. And has to resist the urge of turning around and going back to interrupt what will no doubt turn out to be a riveting tale of her mental health issues and the sob story that has been her life as of late.

People in the department love to gossip, and she is well aware of her issues being amongst the stories that were floating around. And right now, she’s simply too emotionally drained to deal with this, to deal with someone talking about her and her life. Cleaning some cuts and checking if any of them need stitches, now that sounds a lot more like her speed, at this moment in time. And when she’s done with her patient, she can still warn off the resident from repeating any of the stuff the clerk told him to any of the others in his year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Imagine Me and You reference ftw!
> 
> i hope everyone is doing alright. hang in there, and if you're in the states, please, vote! vote like your life depends on it. vote like the life of the people around you depends on it. because it does.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings for drug use, alcohol use, discussion of menstruation, discussion of sex, taking medication for mental illness
> 
> I didn't mean to fall of the face of the earth, I swear! but germany is in light lockdown, so i don't have wifi bc access to the library is more or less closed, and i didn't have enough data on my phone to allow me to post. the state i live in will go into hard lockdown on monday and i had some data left so i figured i should try and get this up and let ppl know i'm alive.
> 
> i can't say when the next time i can post will be, this will have eaten most of my remaining data.

16 Cosima

Cosima sighs, brows twitching as she slowly regains consciousness. The brunette blinks open her eyes, a little surprised by the brightness she found in her bedroom.

She shifts, sitting up and rubbing a hand over her eyes as she lets out a yawn. Cosima squints at her surroundings, finally realizing that this is actually not her own bedroom. Which certainly explains the brightness.

She lets out another sigh and turns back around to bury her face back in the pillow. Which is, strangely warm. Warm, soft, and moving.

Her eyes fly open as Cosima pulls back, staring at the still sleeping form of Delphine right next to her. The blonde lets out a soft huff in her sleep, her arm twitching before she seems to relax back into sleep.

Cosima shifts back, sitting up and blinking at the sight of her girlfriend still asleep before she shakes her head and reaches for the night stand, feeling around for her glasses and puts them on.

Delphine is laying on her back, one arm tugged beneath her pillow, the other thrown over her head, her curls an utter mess around her. Her shirt has ridden up a little, there’s a sliver of naked skin right before the blanket starts, which seems to be hopelessly tangled in the blonde’s long legs.

There’s also a wet spot on her shirt, a little beneath her shoulder. Cosima reaches up in mortification, and wipes a sliver of drool off her own cheek. Bites back a groan of complete embarrassment, so as not to wake her girlfriend.

To be honest, she’s actually surprised that somehow, Delphine managed to sleep through the brunette’s rather graceless process of waking up. But perhaps that has more to do with the fact that Delphine took something to help her fall asleep last night.

She hadn’t wanted to, at first. Especially not while she was on her own. But it had been painfully obvious to Cosima that the blonde needed a good night’s rest, desperately, which was what had made her offer to stay over. Ending up in bed together, that had been an attempt to further ease Delphine’s mind and help her relax. She finally fell asleep to Cosima gently stroking her hand through her hair while reading out loud from an article in Scientific American. She’d realized that Delphine finally fell asleep after the brunette mispronounced a chemical compound and the other woman hadn’t corrected her on it. Cosima stayed up a bit longer, finishing the article, before she put the magazine aside and turned off the light to go to sleep herself.

Delphine shifts in her sleep, the arm on Cosima’s side, the one previously tugged beneath her pillow, moves. Stretches out and rests against the mattress, the space that Cosima previously occupied. Delphine moves, turns onto her side and shifts closer, before her eyes suddenly open, the blonde’s brows furrowing into a confused frown, before she turns her head and finds Cosima sitting there in bed.

“Oh,” the blonde breathes, reaching up to rub a hand over her eyes tiredly.

“Morning,” Cosima greet her with a soft smile. Hesitates, before laying back down. Delphine withdraws her arm, to make room for her again, and closes her eyes for a moment, though she doesn’t seem to relax back into sleep.

“Did I wake you?” Cosima whispers, keeping her voice low. She’s not entirely sure, if Delphine is ready to wake up fully yet, or if the blonde might rather go back to sleep. Coming to think of it, Cosima hasn’t checked what time it is yet, after all. Her alarm is set for shortly after eleven, and that hasn’t gone off yet, so it’s at least earlier than that.

“Hm,” the blonde sighs, opening her eyes again and rubbing the back of her palm over one. “Non. Maybe. I’m not sure,” she murmurs, pinching the bridge of her nose before she pulls a face.

“My head feels fuzzy,” she complains, a small whine in her voice that makes Cosima have to fight back a laugh. She’s, adorable, when she’s pouty, she will give Delphine that.

“Poor puppy,” she murmurs, leaning in to kiss Delphine’s forehead gently, allowing her lips to linger against the soft skin, before she touches them to the top of the blonde’s nose and watches her crinkle it. She hesitates, blushing slightly as she considers kissing Delphine, but then decides against it, instead settling back against the pillow.

They agreed to take it slow. Very, very slow. Like, glacial movement speed. Which, sometimes, it is driving Cosima crazy with the seeming lack of progress. When it feels like they’re, stagnating. But then other times, she thinks that they’re going way too fast and she should be pulling the emergency brake. It’s bound to give Cosima whiplash, one of these days.

She watches Delphine pout briefly before her green eyes open again and she watches Cosima.

“Thank you,” Delphine murmurs, reaching out to stroke her cheek. “For staying,” she elaborates at Cosima’s questioning expression. “I don’t think I’ve actually slept this well in… I don’t even remember, it’s been so long,” she chuckles, her cheeks coloring slightly. Cosima gives a small shake of her head and takes Delphine’s hand. Intertwines their fingers, watching Delphine flex hers before she holds onto her hand.

“I’m glad you’ve finally got a decent rest,” she tells her, giving the blonde’s hand a soft squeeze. “What do you say, we get up now, and find somewhere to go, for brunch?” she suggests.

“Hm,” Delphine hums, her eyes lighting up at the prospect, so Cosima cuts off her own instinct of telling the blonde that they can stay in, if Delphine rather not go out.

“That sounds like a good idea,” the blonde says, slowly sitting up and letting go of Cosima’s hand. Cosima watches as Delphine gets up and stretches, arms pulled over her head before she lets them fall back down again and starts on her way to the bathroom, before the blonde suddenly pauses. Fiddles with the hem of her shirt, appearing to have gotten kind of nervous all of a sudden.

“You know,” she starts, frowning down at her hand. “If you wanted to, you could, stay over more often.”

“Oh?” Cosima breathes, sitting up so she can look at Delphine more easily, without having to crane her neck. She watches her give a small nod.

“I mean, only if you wanted to, of course,” the blonde hastens to add, a furious blush coloring her cheeks. “But, uh, I, I think that we both, I mean, you and I, we slept, slept pretty well, last night. And uh, I, I guess I’m just, just telling that it’s, it’s an option. You know, just in case you, ever… I don’t know, if you’re, too tired to drive back to your place, you know?” she shrugs, before her shoulders slump and Delphine hangs her head for a moment, before she lifts her hands and covers her face briefly.

“That, definitely did not sound as nonchalant as I wanted it to,” she mutters and Cosima lets out a shaky, surprised laugh at the words.

The brunette shifts, swinging her legs out of bed and getting up to walk over to Delphine. She takes a step closer and carefully reaches out to gently settle her hands on the other woman’s hip. Shifts again, to be able to catch Delphine’s eyes as she lowers her hands.

“I don’t want to pretend like this isn’t a big deal,” she tells her, her heart hammering inside her chest. “It is. At least to me,” she continues. “Especially because we agreed that we would be taking things slowly and see how it went. How it all works out. Not that I think last night went badly, because I don’t,” she hurries to assure Delphine when she sees the blonde’s green eyes widening. “I, I think it was, kind of nice, actually,” Cosima smiles at her before sobering again. As much as she wants to let her happiness and giddyness guide her here, it feels like that would be a bad idea, at least long term. Feels like they will be much better off, Delphine and her, if they stick to their plan and give themselves time and take things slowly.

“Maybe we should both, I don’t know,” the brunette frowns, searching for the right words, “perhaps just, take a moment, to process? Figure out how we feel, about all this?”

Delphine’s brows twitch as the blonde tilts her head slightly and then lets out a defeated sigh.

“You are right,” she admits, giving a small nod. “Maybe we should really, take a moment. Or two. Or twenty.”

“Ten might suffice,” Cosima jokes, relieved to hear Delphine let out a soft giggle at her quip. She looks up at her, Cosima’s expression softening.

“Look, I don’t want to slow things down even more,” she tells her. “But it’s… we said that we would take our time, for a reason,” she reminds Delphine. “And I don’t want to push further than either one of us is ready for. I much rather take my time, do it right. Make sure that this is really what we both want and are comfortable with. Are ready for.”

“I appreciate it,” Delphine nods, surprising Cosima when she leans down, her lips brushing over the brunette’s forehead in a soft caress.

“How about, you go ahead and take a shower, while I put on some coffee for us?” Delphine murmurs, the touch lingering briefly before she pulls back. Cosima nods and swallows thickly, trying to keep the butterflies in her stomach from escaping through her mouth.

“Sounds great,” she agrees, allowing her hands to fall away from Delphine’s hips and watching the blonde turn and walk away from her, her hips moving invitingly and causing Cosima to think that she should probably take a pretty cold shower, if she wants to get her mind out of the gutter.

* * *

17 Delphine

She can feel Cosima’s hands move. Feels them glide, from Delphine’s hips to the front of her pants, and the blonde freezes. Breaks the kiss and leans back, blinking slowly.

Immediately, Cosima pauses. Searches Delphine’s face, her dark eyes taking in her features, and Delphine has to bite back a groan of frustration

“Sorry,” she murmurs and leans in for a quick peck to the brunette’s lips. Reaches down and gently removes her hands from the buckle of her belt, feeling herself relax just a little. She intertwines her fingers with Cosima’s, giving her girlfriend’s hands what she hopes is a reassuring squeeze.

It’s not that she doesn’t want to. She does. Really. She knows that there’s a high chance of it being awkward, because she’s only been with one other woman before, but Delphine can live with that. She trusts Cosima, trusts the brunette to understand and be patient with her.

And the two of them talked about this. Talked about, taking the plunge, so to speak, of having sex with each other. The last week or so, they’ve discussed the possibility and what their boundaries were, what either one of them would be comfortable with. Something that had seemed increasingly necessary, as their gentle kisses were turning into full-on makeout sessions that were leaving them both pretty wound up and a tad frustrated.

Delphine wants to make love to her. Honestly, truly, and there is a part of her that’s fairly certain she’s ready, to take that step. Yes, her heart is still extremely fragile. Still very tender and vulnerable. But these days, it feels like it has slowly been healing, at least a tiny bit. Feels like being with Cosima, it is helping Delphine recover just the tiniest bit from the batterings her heart had to take, in the past.

But while her mind and emotions might be in the right place to take this step, her body currently isn’t, which is a great source of frustration, for the blonde.

“It’s fine,” Cosima murmurs, but Delphine catches the disappointment in her dark eyes, the brief expression of hurt, and the confusion in them.

“It’s not you,” she tells the brunette, brushing her lips over the other woman’s forehead in a soft caress before she leans in and captures Cosima’s lips in a new kiss. “And I am not, leading you on,” she adds after, a regretful sigh falling from her lips.

“O-kay?” Cosima murmurs, tilting her head slightly. She’s clearly confused, and Delphine honestly doesn’t blame her. She knows she’s kind of, sending mixed signals, right now. If she didn’t want to sleep with her, she should probably stop kissing Cosima like this. Should probably do something against the way her body curved just then, and pressed into Cosima’s own. But damn, she’s so horny, right now, only… only…

“I’m, on my period,” she sighs, biting back a groan of frustration.

“Oh!” Cosima breathes, her eyes widening. “So?” she adds as she tilts her head and Delphine feels her own eyes widen.

“Uh…” she stammers, her heart pounding in her chest as her brain scrambles to catch up with what’s happening.

Any man that she ever dated, in the past, hadn’t been interested in sleeping with her, during those days. She’d only had so much as mention the p-word and they’d all back off. Most of the time, that was. There were a couple that tried to get her to still go down on them. Who she broke up with shortly after.

But she’d never been with anyone who hadn’t been bothered by the whole thing. Who hadn’t so much as blinked at the idea. Which left her gaping at Cosima now, Delphine’s mind struggling to figure out which way was up.

The brunette straightened and gave Delphine’s hand a soft squeeze.

“Sorry,” she apologizes. Reached up with one hand, to push her glasses back up her nose. “I didn’t mean to… Like, I get it, if this isn’t something that you’re comfortable with,” she tells Delphine. “I’m just saying, I’m cool with it,” Cosima continued, shoulders moving in a small shrug. “And besides, an orgasm is supposed to be really amazing, for relieving cramping,” she follows up with a cheeky grin and Delphine lets out a surprised bark of laughter before she shakes her head and leans in to rest her forehead against her girlfriend’s, for a moment.

“I… I, don’t know,” she sighs, her head still spinning as she tries to untangle her thoughts and emotions. She’s horny, is definitely in the mood, and if, this, wasn’t going on, Delphine is pretty sure that the night would end with the two of them falling into bed together. But this is going on, and she isn’t entirely sure why she’s so, reluctant.

Her hesitancy and to be honest, slight revulsion at the idea of sex while she’s menstruating could simply be a lingering effect of the reactions of her previous intimate relationships. And of how society still views this particular bodily function, of how it is still is treated as something shameful and taboo that shouldn’t be mentioned.

Or is could be because Delphine herself doesn’t like being touched while she’s on her period. Not that she ever really tried, and to be completely honest, she is sexually frustrated and downright horny, right now. She would love to have sex with Cosima right, could just jump the brunette’s bones, if it weren’t for…

Cosima shifts, her nose bumping against Delphine’s before the brunette kisses her slowly, without hurry. Lets go of Delphine’s hand and then she feels her slip it to the front of her pants again, undoing the buckle of Delphine’s belt as the blonde finds herself yelling at her brain to just shut the fuck up with its protests about how this isn’t proper, that she shouldn’t be asking this of Cosima.

“Hang on,” Delphine breathes between kisses and pulls back. Worries at her lower lip, her brows dipping into a frown.

“Dollar for your thoughts?”

Cosima’s voice pulls her from her thoughts after a moment, the familiar words making her lips curve into a smile. The first time she’d said it, Delphine had been confused and asked her if the phrase wasn’t ‘penny for your thoughts’, to which Cosima had responded that her thoughts were worth way more than that. It’s become almost a thing, between them, and Delphine revels in the affection that she feels the words express, before she sobers again and feels herself blush furiously.

“Would you be terribly upset if… if I told you that I feel like I should, take a shower first?” she asks, berating herself inside her head. It seems like she can try all she want, but there is no pushing away the thoughts of some of the stigma assosciated with menstruation cause.

“Of course not!” Cosima exclaims with a sharp shake of her head. “Like, besides all this,” she says, gesturing towards Delphine’s middle, “you can do whatever it is that you need to, to make you feel comfortable about, doing that,” she tells her. “Like, shave your legs, tweeze your eyebrows, whatever, it’s cool,” she says before drawing a slow breath.

“And, just to be clear, and please don’t think that I want to push or anything. I’m just saying, this is completely your choice and all that. You decide what you’re okay with. But I’m just like, letting you know that, sharing that shower is totally an option as well.”

Cosima gives a waggle of her eyebrows as she grins at Delphine and the blonde feels herself let out a soft chuckle. Leans in, to brush her lips over Cosima’s, touched by her thoughtfulness and willingness to accommodate Delphine.

“Tempting,” she sighs against the brunette’s lips before pulling back. “But, uh…” Delphine trails off, not entirely sure how to explain to Cosima that it feels like she should be cleaning herself up first. Should make sure that there was no major disaster, between the last time that she used the bathroom, and now.

Cosima reaches up, gently cradling Delphine’s face. She strokes her thumbs over the blonde’s cheek, causing Delphine’s eyes to flutter close at the soft touch, the blonde relaxing somewhat.

“How about we, postpone this?” Cosima murmurs softly, touching her forehead against Delphine’s, who lets out a sigh before giving a tiny nod of agreement.

“That, might be best,” she allows reluctantly. As much as she might want to have sex, to sleep with Cosima, right now it feels, it feels simply too big, in a way. There are too many firsts wrapped up into one act that it feels overwhelming to her. And if there is one thing that Delphine had to learn time and again, over the past couple of years, it’s that there is no sense in pushing herself. That, if she does, it will only come to bite her in the ass eventually, which is certainly not something she wants the first time she sees Cosima naked to do. She wants it to be a good experience, for both of them, wants to be able to remember it with fondness, and not come to regret the timing later.

“Maybe you should tell me,” she murmurs, “the days of your cycle. So that we may avoid another episode like this.”

Cosima chuckles softly at her words.

“I’m not really all that regular,” the brunette shrugs, kissing Delphine softly. “Which has its upside, because I don’t often have to take it into account when I’m dating. But when it comes to scheduling events, it can be a bit annoying.”

Delphine pulls back, her eyes wide. She barely manages to resist the urge of hitting her forehead.

She completely forgot, for a moment, that there was a reason why Cosima had gone with a surrogate when she decided to have a baby. A biological one, that was. Delphine never asked her what exactly it was, never pushed to find out the actual diagnosis, if there even was one. Reproduction and fertility issues could be tricky, and touchy as well. Cosima had told her during one of their first long conversation, when they started hanging out more, that she was infertile. Delphine had been surprised by the casualness in which Cosima seemed to be able to mention it, but then she’d figured that the other woman may have had some time, to deal with it and come to terms with that that meant, for herself. It hadn’t stopped her, from trying to have a child, and Delphine is certain that Cosima would have made an amazing mother. The kind of love she still had, for her daughter, the affection and care, it speaks volumes to the bond that Cosima had with her, even before the baby had been born, and the brunette had not been the person that carried her.

“I’m so sorry,” Delphine breathes, frowning at her own lapse, but Cosima easily waves her off.

“Don’t worry,” she tells her with a shrug. “It is what it is. Besides, being unable to sync my period with that of a partner might have been a good thing in the past. There are some times where I fear if that happened, there would have been bloodshed of an entirely different sort,” she quips.

Delphine opens her mouth again, itching to protest, and repeat her apology. She wants to insist that she messed up, and to tell Cosima that the brunette has every right to be upset with her for that careless comment.

But she manages to catch herself, fighting against the impulse. If Cosima tells her that she doesn’t have to worry about it, she should be trusting the brunette. It is, after all, her girlfriend’s body, and her feelings. Delphine ought to believe her when Cosima tells her that she’s fine, that Delphine hasn’t hurt her feelings, or at least not too badly. They did promise each other they would let the other one know, if that was the case. That they would be open about what was going on inside of them.

So Delphine swallows, forcing down the words again. Leans over to rest her forehead against Cosima, soaking up her presence. And tries not to wonder too much, about what she did to actually deserve this. To deserve such an understanding partner that’s willing to accommodate her and her issues, and instead tries to enjoy the moment and the happiness Cosima’s proximity brings her.

* * *

18 Cosima

Her lips purse as Cosima glares at the little white pill in her palm.

“Chérie?”

Delphine’s voice is soft and followed by a gentle touch to Cosima’s shoulder. The brunette allows a sigh to escape her and tilts back her head to meet the other woman’s eyes briefly, before her own skit away again. Return to the pill in her hand, and the building frustration inside of her.

She hears the other woman draw a deliberate breath. Feels the touch of her hand drop away and sees Delphine move out of the corner of her eye. The blonde comes to stand in front of her as Cosima remains glued to her spot in the kitchen, feeling an unreasonable amount of anger and frustration at the sight of the pill in the palm of her hand and everything it represents to her.

“Dollar for your thoughts?” Delphine murmurs as she leans her hip against the counter. Cosima bites back a groan before allowing a deep sigh to escape her. She gives a small shrug, frowning down at her hand.

It hadn’t been the first time that her therapist suggested medication. But after months of deciding that she wanted to do it without pharmaceutical help, Cosima actually really allowed herself to truly consider the option for the first time. Perhaps it is being with Delphine that, kind of opened her eyes to the possibility.

She knows that, by the blonde’s own estimation, Delphine benefits from the anti-depressant that she takes. She’s been on it consistently for over a year now, and besides from some headaches and slight nausea when she first started taking it, she never experienced any side-effects. But if it weren’t for the medication, Delphine believes that she wouldn’t be able to work at all. She hadn’t been able to get out of bed most days before she was put on it, she’s admitted to Cosima.

And it’s not that Cosima judges people who need medication for their mental health issues. She actually thinks it’s great, that there is medication for them to take, to help them deal with their mental health issues. It is truly amazing, how far medicine and neuroscience has come, and the brunette firmly believes that people should be making use of it in whatever way helps them. There should be no shame in needing help and taking it.

Yet when it comes to herself, it suddenly feels, different. It’s not as easy as simply getting a diagnosis and then popping some pills to deal with it.

She’s worked so hard in therapy. Has been going since nearly the day that she found out, about her daughter having a fatal genetic defect. And Cosima, she has managed to go without medication for so long. Suddenly starting to take something, it feels kind of, giving up. Feels like it’s ignoring all the progress she has made, and how difficult getting to where she is now has been, for her.

Besides, she’s well aware that this isn’t some kind of, miracle cure. It won’t make the grief go away. It may not even help with the depression. So really, what’s the point in even considering it, if it won’t help?

Cosima frowns at her own thoughts and gives a small shake of her head at the thoughts. That’s a pretty fucked up and narrow view of help, she thinks, berating herself. Like, Delphine, her depression didn’t magically fuck off when she started taking meds for it. But they have made her life a lot easier. Made living, if not completely enjoyable, at least much less of a gloomy prison that the blonde was hoping every day to finally be able to escape.

“It’s just, a lot,” Cosima finally says, looking back at her girlfriend.

Who nods slowly before she tilts her head. Reaches up, to brush her curls away from her face. She’s still a bit, slow. Still not completely awake yet. Won’t be, until she’s had her first coffee of the day.

“You know,” Delphine starts, shifting a little as she searches Cosima’s face, “I haven’t taken mine yet,” she tells her. “Would it help if…”

Cosima swallows thickly as Delphine’s voice trails off.

She wants to say no. Her brain is yelling at her, telling her how she’s not some little kid anymore, she doesn’t need someone else to take their meds along with her, to make it easier for her. Cosima, she’s a goddamn adult, and very capable of making her own decision, thank you very much.

But she noticed the way that her chest has started to feel just a little less tight, at Delphine’s offer. Noticed how actually strting her anti-depressant didn’t feel like a terrible thing anymore.

“Yeah,” she admits, feeling her shoulders slump, Cosima’s cheeks heating in embarrassment.

“Bien,” Delphine nods with a soft smile and leans in to kiss Cosima’s cheek before she moves past her, to get her meds from her purse. Leaves Cosima alone in the kitchen, the brunette closing her eyes as she forces herself to take a slow breath. And tells her brain to please just shut the hell up.

She shakes her head and puts the pill on the counter before getting another glass from the cupboard and filling it with some water from the tap.

“Thank you,” Delphine murmurs as she returns, accepting the glass with an easy smile. She takes a small sip and another before popping her medication into her mouth and using the rest of the drink to wash it down.

Cosima finds herself rolling her eyes, biting back the comment of ‘show-off’ when Delphine makes it looks this easy, especially since the pill she takes are nearly twice the size of Cosima’s. Not just because of a difference in dose, thought that’s probably an aspect as well. But Delphine is on something else than what Cosima’s own doctor prescribed her, after lengthy discussions about effectiveness and goals, and side-effects and all that lovely stuff.

The brunette shakes her head before placing the pill in her own mouth and washing it down with her drink, giving a small shudder at the chalky aftertaste of the medication. Maybe Delphine had the right idea with using water to keep it from sticking to her tongue. Cosima can try that next time.

“Well done,” the blonde smiles and leans in to kiss the corner of Cosima’s mouth. And the brunette finds herself blinking in surprise at how much warmth spreads inside her chest at simply hearing those words.

Normally, she’s so independent. She’d balk at the idea of being praised for something so utterly mundane. Something that Cosima feels should not have been such a big deal, something she should have managed perfectly well on her own. Yet Delphine’s words weren’t those of sarcastic praise. There had been warmth and affection in them. She seems genuinely proud of her, and maybe, just maybe, Cosima can admit that the blonde perhaps might have a point and this could indeed be something that Cosima could allow herself to be proud of. Perhaps.

“Thanks,” she replies, turning her head to brush her lips over Delphine’s in a soft caress, hoping to be able to convey her gratitude without words.

“You’re more than welcome,” her girlfriend replies, touching the underside of Cosima’s jaw before her hand falls away again.

“Now come on, we were going to make breakfast, and you were going to tell me all about that article you were reading quotes from last night,” she says, taking Cosima’s hand and tugging her over to the cabinet to the fridge. Delphine opens it, rummaging around briefly before she starts handing Cosima items and the brunette blinks, shaking her head before she starts moving, her brain slowly kicking into Science Mode as she recounts the article she read last night, not allowing her to linger on the magnitude of the previous moments.

Which, Cosima has the sneaking suspicion, may be exactly what Delphine is going for. And she appreciates the distraction, especially since her stomach is starting to demand food.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you struggle with mental health issues, please know that medication is an option. there is nothing shameful about wanting it, or needing it. i'm on an ssri and have taken different medication in the past, and i have learned the hard way that i need it long term to remain somewhat ~functional. i know it can be scary and like you're "cheating", but for any other illness, we take medication without much second thought. you have an infection? you take anti-biotics, to help your body fight it. you have an imbalance of neurotransmitters? you take medication to help level them out. it's the same thing.
> 
> cosima's beginning struggle was inspired by a friend's when they started taking psych meds. i personally never had that, bc when i went on it it was like "eh, what do i gotta lose?" kind of approach for me. but i know others have felt very different about it, and that's alright. however most ppl i have talked to, have said the same thing that i feel: starting psych meds was one of the best things i ever did, closely followed by getting inpatient therapy. i understand that i had a very, smooth experience and immediately found medication that worked for me. others have had to try different meds and dosages. but once you find the one that helps you, it can be a life changing experience, in a positive way, and i just want anyone that is struggling to know that it is an option.
> 
> i have purposefully not specified what kind of medication delphine and cosima are on, besides it being an ssri. there are a lot of options out there, and a doctor and/or psychiatrist you trust will be able to help you figure out what will work the best for you and your specific needs and symptoms.
> 
> if you find yourself struggling, esp over the holidays, please reach out. there are hotlines available, people you can talk to, who won't judge and just listen. the world feels like it is in fire right now, i get that. but i want you to know that, it is much brighter with you in it. you're important, you matter. and your spark would be terribly missed.
> 
> take care!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter contains sexual content
> 
> Merry Shitscram!

19 Delphine

She can’t remember the last time she felt so… like, like this.

Delphine lets out a low moan, her heart hammering in her chest while her hands roam over Cosima’s back restlessly. The blonde had to consciously keep herself from scratching her. Has to fight down the urge to let her nails dig into the soft skin, the sudden impulse to mark the other woman causing Delphine’s green eyes to fly open in surprise.

“Hey,” Cosima murmurs, kissing her again before she pulls back a little, to be better able to meet Delphine’s gaze. She feels her shift and Delphine quickly locks her legs around Cosima’s, to prevent the other woman from further withdrawing. The weight of the brunette’s body on top of her has been strangely comforting, and just the minimal loss of contact as Cosima just shifted back a little feels entirely unacceptable to Delphine.

“Are you okay?” Cosima asks her. Her voice is soft and she reaches up to gently stroke a curl of hair back from Delphine’s face. The blonde swallows thickly at the tenderness of the gesture before nodding.

“Oui,” she murmurs, lifting her head off the pillow to be able to capture Cosima’s lips in a soft kiss. One that is a far cry from the heavy intense ones that the two of them were exchanging just moments ago.

“Je suis vraiment fantastique.”

Cosima’s brows twitch and Delphine watches the corners of her mouth lift slightly.

“You can’t possibly expect my brain to work well enough to actually decipher any foreign language right now,” she says, her words causing Delphine to let out a soft laugh. It makes her tilt her head back and Delphine’s laugh cuts off with a surprised gasp as Cosima takes the opportunity to carefully nib at the newly exposed skin. Delphine’s hips rise, bucking up against Cosima’s in response. Feels Cosima’s lips curl into a grin against her skin and Delphine reaches up to give the brunette’s locs a slight tug, reprimanding her lightly for her cheekiness.

Cosima kisses her neck before rocking her hips against Delphine’s, causing the blonde to let out a sigh of relief, her own pelvis countering the movement instinctively.

She really hadn’t planned on ending up in bed with Cosima, at least not tonight. It started with innocent kisses while they were cooking dinner together, and then escalated into heavy making out while they pretended to watch some mindless movie that was on TV. And she’d slipped her hands under Cosima’s shirt and the brunette had toyed with the hem of Delphine’s skirt before asking if she could touch her, and it had felt like everything just, clicked right into place. She’d felt like she was ready. Like this, this was it. Her body and mind had finally arrived at the same place, and been in sync with Cosima’s as well, and Delphine decided to just, take the plunge.

And it’s been, absolutely wonderful, and amazing, and Delphine thinks she might start crying with how in love she feels, with how amazing this feels. How wonderful it is, to have Cosima’s skin against her own, to have her body pressed against Delphine’s. To feel her move against her, to have Cosima on top of her. To kiss her and touch her, and get to explore every inch of the brunette’s body. To feel Cosima’s muscles move beneath Delphine’s fingers, to listen to her moan and whimper and feel her breath catch as Delphine kisses her deeply and tilts her hips, the change in angle causing stars to explode across her vision as the blonde’s orgasm hits her full force.

She quickly shakes her head, panic welling up inside of her when she feels Cosima try to pull back.

“Non,” Delphine breathes, clutching weakly at the brunette’s back to keep her close when Cosima tries to roll off of her.

“Am too heavy,” Cosima protests, but still settles back against her, pulling a relieved sigh from Delphine. She feels the other woman tuck her head beneath Delphine’s chin and pulls back her head to be able to kiss her hair, a content sigh leaving Cosima as her body relaxes further into Delphine’s. The blonde’s fingers toy around with one of Cosima’s locs, revelling in their closeness. Feels herself tear up a little and closes her eyes, drawing a steadying breath.

She feels Cosima’s fingers carefully trace idle patterns against the skin of her side, the barely-there touch causing goosebumps to break out across Delphine’s skin. She shivers and Cosima lifts her head, pushing herself up. Delphine allows her arms to fall away to let her sit up completely. She reaches up to rub the heel of her palm across her eyes. Blinks in surprise when she feels the blanket being pulled over her, and then Cosima is laying down next to her again. Searches her face as she carefully runs her hand over Delphine’s thigh before guiding the taller woman to turn onto her side and wrap it around Cosima’s hip, to push them closer together.

Delphine feels a soft sigh leave her at the feeling of Cosima’s soft skin beneath her leg, warmth spreading through her chest as her girlfriend kisses the tip of her nose before she lays back down. Her fingers are stroking the skin of Delphine’s thigh, tracing nonsense patterns into her skin.

“Sleepyhead,” she hears Cosima tease when her eyes flutter shut and Delphine forces them open again, to be able to give her a mock glare, before she relaxes again, her features softening.

“Think of it as a compliment,” she tells Cosima, allowing her eyes to close again. She shifts, leaning forward to nose at Cosima’s shoulder, lips touching the other woman’s clavicle in a soft kiss before she wraps an arm around Cosima’s waist, holding onto the smaller woman. It makes her feel, something. Something she thought that she would never get again, when she lost her son.

“Compliment?”

“Hm,” Delphine hums. “You completely wore me out.”

“Ah,” Cosima hums. And then causes Delphine to let out a laugh when she hears the brunette let out a heavy yawn of her own.

She opens her eyes again and takes in Cosima’s face. The slightly smudged eyeliner, the vulnerable light shining in her eyes. The softness of her expression.

Delphine reaches up and strokes her thumb over Cosima’s cheek, watching her. Cosima’s brows lift in a silent question, dark eyes searching.

“You make me, very, very happy,” Delphine whispers. Swallows thickly at the swell of emotion that rises in her chest. She almost said, something else. Almost said a different set of words, the ones that have been rattling around inside her head for days now, whenever she was looking at Cosima for more than half a second. They’re close. As close as Delphine thinks she is ready to say out loud at this point, as close as she is ready to let Cosima know, at least just yet.

Cosima’s dark eyes widen in mute surprise. The blonde watches her mouth open slightly before the smaller woman swallows thickly.

“You make me very happy, too,” she replies, touching her forehead to Delphine’s and brushing her nose against the blonde’s. It makes Delphine’s heart stutter in her chest, the soft tenderness of the gesture, the easy way with which Cosima seems to fit against her body. The ease of being with the other woman like this. All of it, it makes Delphine think that maybe, her heart doesn’t feel quite as brittle anymore.

* * *

20 Cosima

She’s so not going to explain this whole thing a fifth time. Not just because Cosima is of the firm belief that “No.” is a complete sentence that does not require any further elaboration or explanation. But it’s also that she can tell Alison is clearly looking for a fight, and if Cosima were to speak to her cousin again about this bullshit, especially right now, she would explode and probably say something she’s pretty sure she would regret just a couple of hours later.

Yes, she knows that it’s not Alison’s fault that her adopted daughter is Charlie’s age. And Cosima has bought the girl a present and mailed it, along with a colorful ‘Happy birthday’ card. And it’s not Gemma’s fault, either, and Cosima doesn’t want to hurt the kid’s feelings. But the girl seems to be pretty understanding, which in turn is upsetting, because a four year old appears to be more understanding than a grown ass woman.

Alison had the nerve to demand that Cosima attend the birthday party, for the girl. And when the brunette had declined, on account of not wanting to force Delphine into a situation that would have been unimaginably painful, for the blonde, Alison flat-out told her to come by herself then, and leave her girlfriend at home, and Cosima had hung up on her at that point, to keep herself from yelling at the other woman.

Does she want Delphine to meet her family? Yes. Of course Cosima does. But she wants it to happen on Delphine’s terms. When the blonde is ready for it, and not when other people demand it. And it has been very clear that Delphine is not ready for this. She might have been able to handle Alison, on a good day. Might even be okay with Alison and her husband, and potentially even with the older boy, Oscar. But while Cosima knows that seeing the boy would cause some sadness and lead Delphine to wonder what her own child would have been like, at his age, meeting Gemma and being around the girl, it would devastate her. It would be way too much, too many memories that would be stirred up for Delphine that she wouldn’t be able to deal with all at the same time.

And it’s not that it’s Cosima’s decision, not to attend. It wasn’t her who decided that they were better off, not going to the party. That had been Delphine. The blonde reluctantly admitted that she thought it would be too much for her, even years after her son’s passing. That she didn’t think she would be able to make it through the afternoon, not without breaking down. But even if Delphine hadn’t said anything out loud, Cosima could read it. In the way her brows furrowed, the shallowness of her breaths when she’d told her, about the invitation. The way that the blonde’s shoulders slumped and she only toyed with her food during dinner.

“I’m sorry,” Delphine murmurs, lifting the ice pack from her forehead. She came back from work with a killer headache, one that certainly wasn’t improved by recent events.

Cosima shakes her head at the blonde and takes the ice pack, testing the temperature to make sure it’s still cool before it gently puts it back against Delphine’s curls. Watches, as her eyes close and Delphine’s features relax a little.

She took something for the pain like ten minutes ago, it should be kicking in in a bit. Until then, the cold is supposed to help tide her over. Cosima also drew the curtains to her bedroom and put the two candles from the dining table on the dresser, to provide some soft light that’s easier on Delphine’s eyes than the bright glare of a cell phone light.

“Sh,” Cosima mutters. Gently runs her fingers through the blonde’s hair before taking a moment and then doing it again, allowing her fingers to touch Delphine’s scalp. The blonde lets out a soft sigh, relaxing further as Cosima starts to massage her head, hoping to alleviate some of the pain.

She has already told Delphine that she has nothing to apologize for. That it takes as long as it takes. Cosima more than anyone understands that. She gets that there is no way to, fast forward through the grieving process. When Alison had told her that her husband and her were adopting two children, neither of which was a baby, the brunette had been relieved. Because she knows that there’s a large chance she may not have been able to be around them much, if at all, if they had had a baby. It would have been too painful, for her, to see them have something that she had wanted so much, as well.

And besides all that, she has to admit that she also feels something pretty close to, pride, in her chest. She knows how hard it must have been for Delphine, to tell her this. To admit that she didn’t think she could be around Gemma. It’s a testament of how much Delphine trusts her, that she can be honest with Cosima, about her feelings. And the brunette hadn’t been sure if she would tell her. She’d been fully prepared, to suggest sitting out the party herself. Would have taken a mute nod from Delphine and never brought the subject up again, any reaction plenty of an answer to the brunette. But it had been Delphine who actually brought up the topic, had been the blonde who had decided to confide in Cosima, about her feelings regarding the matter. And that, that feels, big. Feels massive, feels like an enormous leap, in their relationship.

“I love you.”

Cosima feels her dark eyes widen in surprise at the words that have just left her own mouth. The brunette swallows thickly as her hand stills in Delphine’s hair. She can feel the other woman tense up and holds her breath for a moment, before carefully letting it out again.

Delphine shifts slowly, her green eyes opening again. She looks up at Cosima, her eyes searching, scanning her features. The brunette draws a deep breath and offers the other woman a helpless shrug.

“Bad timing, I know,” she murmurs, lips curling into a sheepish smile. She hears Delphine inhale and then the blonde pushes herself up into a sitting position as well. Turns and pulls up a leg, so she can wrap her arms around it, hug her knee to herself. Put up a barrier, between herself and Cosima.

The realization stings, but Cosima tilts her head and then scoots back a little, allowing Delphine more space, giving the taller woman some more room.

“Why now?” Delphine asks her, her voice low. Barely audible, in the silence of the bedroom. Cosima’s brows dip and her mouth opens, before she realizes that she actually doesn’t really have a good answer.

“I don’t know,” she shrugs, feeling her cheeks color. “I guess I just got tired of pushing the words back down,” she admits, and watches as Delphine’s eyes widen in surprise at her statement.

“I mean, I may not have planned on saying it right now, obvs. If I had planned it, there’d be like, rose petals and romantic music, and we’d both be wearing far less clothes,” she tells her. “But just because I didn’t plan on doing it now, that doesn’t mean I never thought it before,” Cosima shrugs. Reaches up to rub the back of her neck in mild embarrassment. “Kinda maybe haven’t really been to stop thinking it, to be honest.”

Delphine swallows thickly and looks away. Cosima watches the blonde’s jaw work silently for a few moments, resisting the urge to fill the silence. To give the other woman some space and time, to sort out her thoughts, her feelings.

Finally, when she’s not able to bear the silence anymore, Cosima reaches out, gently touching the blonde’s hand resting on Delphine’s knee.

“Hey,” she murmurs as Delphine looks up sharply in surprise. “It’s okay,” Cosima tells her, forcing what she hopes is a reassuring smile.

“Really,” she insists at Delphine’s doubtful expression. “I, I didn’t mean to pressure you or anything. Promise,” she tries to reassure the other woman. “And I don’t expect you to say it back. Especially right now. There’s, so much stuff going on, and I’m sorry for heaping this on top. This was, really bad timing,” the brunette sighs, shaking her head in annoyance with herself. Why did she say it, now of all times?

“I know you’ve had a shit week, and there’s already so much going on, so much on your plate, and there I go…” she sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I didn’t mean to add more to it. I’m really, really sorry, Delphine.”

“It’s okay,” the blonde murmurs. Reaches up to rub a hand over her face. “I am just… there’s too much, in my head, right now. Too much on my mind. It’s like this whole big mess of, all these things that I can’t seem to untangle. At least not right now,” she tries to explain, and Cosima finds herself nodding quickly in understanding.

“Of course,” she replies, gently stroking Delphine’s cheek. “No pressure, I totally get it,” she adds as the blonde’s eyes flutter shut and she allows them to remain closed before she opens them again.

“It’s okay,” Cosima tells her softly. “Lay down. Get some sleep.”

Delphine lets out a low hum, shifting to lay down. Takes Cosima’s hand and tugs on it gently, prompting the brunette to snuggle up behind her, Delphine holding onto her hand across her middle. Cosima forces herself to relax and breathe evenly, listening to Delphine’s own breaths. Soon, she feels Delphine relax against her as the blonde allows sleep to pull her under, leaving Cosima to watch her, a huge lump sitting in her throat. She wonders, if she may have ruined things between them, with her untimely confession. If she might have put too much pressure on Delphine with her statement. Too much for the blonde to deal with, at least at this moment in time.

* * *

21 Delphine

She picks up the bottle and one of the glasses, filling it and then holding it out to Cosima. The brunette cocks her head, the smile on her face wavering as she contemplates the glass.

“Non-alcoholic,” Delphine tells her, turning the bottle so she can show Cosima the label. And watches her girlfriend relax and reach out to accept the glass. Delphine takes the other, pouring herself a drink as well, before she sets down the bottle again. She straightens, brushing her curls from her face as she searches for the right words.

Right now, her brain is a big jumble of, happiness. Happiness and joy and pride, and she’s having a hard time, putting it all into some semblance of a coherent celebratory toast.

“To you,” she finally settles on, lifting her glass of the non-alcoholic cider in her girlfriend’s reaction. “That your endeavors with this lab will be, fruitful, and groundbreaking, and all you could possibly want for them to be,” she says, holding out her glass. Waits, for Cosima to raise her own and clink it against Delphine’s before the brunette takes a small sip, her eyes widening in surprise.

“This is, really good,” she remarks, licking her lips as Delphine takes a sip as well. “Much, much better than the kid’s stuff we tried before.”

“Hm,” Delphine agrees with an appreciative hum. “It took me a while, to find it, but it appears to have been well worth it,” she agrees with Cosima, her lips curving into a soft smile. As much as Cosima might have enjoyed the kid’s cider with all its sweetness, Delphine had figured it would be nice to have something more, dignified, on hand, for this kind of celebration. Something more adult, than a pink Hello Kitty bottle. And her partner landing a job at a highly respected research institute is definitely an occasion that calls for a more dignified celebration. Something more worthy of it, more appropriate than a pink drink drink smelling of bubblegum. No offense to the little cartoon cat.

Cosima takes another sip of her drink before tilting her head to the side again. She watches the bubbles rise in her glass, a contemplative expression crossing her face.

“Everything alright?” Delphine asks her, worry seizing the blonde. Maybe this is, too much. Perhaps Cosima hadn’t wanted to celebrate this. Hadn’t wanted to make a big deal out of her new job. Perhaps the brunette is just tired, exhausted after the day she’s had, and Delphine insisting on marking the occasion had been too much-

“Huh? Oh, yeah,” Cosima nods, smiling at Delphine as she returns from the depth of her musings, whatever those were.

“Yeah, I was just…” the brunette says, gesturing. “You know, my parents, they’ve been asking to visit, and I kept telling them that it wasn’t a good time. That I was, too busy, or that I felt like I was coming down with something, or just, anything, really. And now I’ll actually have a real excuse, I guess. Not one that I’ll have to make up,” the brunette chuckles darkly.

“Do you not want them to see you?” Delphine asks, tapping her nail against the side of her own glass for a moment, before she notices and quickly stops the nervous gesture.

Her own relationship with her parents is, somewhat of a strained one. They never were the warmest individuals when she was growing up, but Delphine has to admit that they absolutely adored Charlie. They practically treated their grandson like royalty, and the little boy had them wrapped around his tiny fingers, ever since his first breath. Maybe even well before that. Delphine distinctly remembers her father insisting on building a crib for the baby, when Evan and her told her parents they were having a baby.

Delphine swallows thickly and gives a slight shake of her head, in an attempt to pull herself from those thoughts.

“No, it’s just… okay, so, I’m actually adopted,” Cosima tells her, moving her arms. “My parents tried to have kids, but my mom ended up having a couple of miscarriages, and they gave up on it after a while. Decided that it was simply too painful, for them, to keep doing this. So they started looking into adoption instead, and found baby me,” Cosima says with a small shrug. “And I think she… she kind of thought that this was, something that we would bond over, in a weird way, I suppose,” Delphine’s partner sighs, reaching up to pinch the bridge of her nose. “As if her experiences were in any way close to the one I had. And just, I dunno. I guess I felt, judged, sometimes, for the way I grieve, compared to how she and my dad did, for their children,” Cosima shrugs, looking away as her jaw works.

“I am so sorry,” Delphine breathes. She reaches out to take Cosima’s hand and gently strokes her thumb over the back, holding on. “Hey,” she murmurs as she takes a step closer when Cosima gives her fingers a gentle squeeze. “You’re grieving exactly the way that you need to,” Delphine reminds her. “There is no, right or wrong way, about this. Only your way, and that’s something you have to figure out yourself, no one can dictate that for you.”

“I know,” the brunette sighs. She looks up at Delphine, the corners of her mouth quirking into a soft smile. “But thanks, for telling me. Reminding me. It helps, to hear it out loud.”

“Always,” Delphine nods easily, giving Cosima’s hand a squeeze. “Even though I’m not really one to talk, I suppose. I don’t really keep in contact with my own parents that much. Not since Charlie…” she trails off with a shuddering breath. Saying it out loud, it still is, too much, some days. Hurts too much, to speak the words.

“But,” Delphine continues, after taking a steadying breath, “if you wanted to see them and didn’t want to just go by yourself…” she starts, feeling herself flush. She watches as Cosima’s dark eyes widen and the other woman looks up at her, searching Delphine’s face. The blonde ducks her head, frowning down at her feet as she searched for a way to backpedal.

“I don’t mean necessarily… I mean, you could just tell them that, I’m a, a good friend,” she stammers, the heat burning across her cheeks now spreading to the entirety of her face and down her neck. Which is, just wonderful, she thinks, wishing that she hadn’t said anything at all in the first place while she hopes for the ground to open up and swallow her whole.

“You, want to meet my parents?” Cosima asks her. Much to Delphine’s surprise, the brunette is not teasing, her voice actually devoid of any humor. Neither does Cosima seem shocked, when Delphine finally manages to gather enough of her courage to be able to chance a quick glance at the other woman’s face.

“Maybe?” she says, frowning at herself. “I, I know that, it’s a lot. It is a big step, and one that we haven’t discussed before, on top of that. And I completely understand, if this is not something that you want. That you may not be ready for. Whether that is, just right now, or ever-”

“Hey, no,” Cosima quickly shakes her head. “Wait, hold up,” she says and sets down her glass. Gently takes Delphine’s away as well, before she takes hold of both of the blonde’s hands, intertwining their fingers.

“I love you,” Cosima reminds her, Delphine’s heart skipping a beat as happiness floods her at the words. “This, this isn’t some short fling, for me. Not some, insignificant interlude. I want to be with you, long term. And for me, eventually, that will include introducing you to my parents.”

“Okay,” Delphine whispers, feeling the corners of her mouth curve up a little, in the faintest hint of a smile as relief floods her, Cosima’s words helping to calm her nerves.

“Just, not right now,” the smaller woman adds. “I think I need some more time, to get to a point where I’ll be able to actually really talk about my life and what has been going on with them again,” she says, her brows crinkling.

“Okay,” Delphine repeats, drawing a deep breath. “Cosima?” she asks, searching the brunette’s face, her heart racing in her chest.

“Yeah?” her girlfriend hums, pausing in her gathering their glasses again. She looks up at Delphine and the blonde swallows thickly, nerves bubbling in in her chest before she gives a minute shake of her head.

“Je t’aime.”

Cosima’s eyes widen in stunned surprise and Delphine quickly reaches out to catch the glass before it slips from her slackened fingers.

“Cosima-” she starts, but then staggers back as the brunette practically launches herself at Delphine. Wraps her arms around her taller form to pull her close and tug her down into an intense kiss that makes Delphine’s eyes flutter close. That causes her to see starts and sets off fireworks exploding in her belly.

“Ey,” she murmurs as she puts down the glass, flinching at how hard it hits the table before she wraps her arms around Cosima, to hold the smaller woman close and kiss her again and again, breathing her in.

“Sh, hey,” Delphine whispers, nosing at Cosima’s cheek between kisses. “It’s okay.”

“Hm,” Cosima mumbles, sighing into the blonde’s mouth before a shudder runs through her smaller form.

“It’s okay,” the blonde repeats as she feels Cosima suddenly crumble against her, the brunette’s shoulders starting to shake as she begins to cry with relief.

“Je t’aime, mon amour. Je t’aime,” Delphine whispers, kissing Cosima’s cheek and trailing soft kisses along her jaw before she simply holds onto her girlfriend and lets her cry, promising that she’ll never allow Cosima to doubt her feelings for her again.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Sol Invictus!
> 
> this one is more on the heavier side, so if you're already having a tough time, maybe wait a bit with reading? there's loads of emotional support, too, but the death of their children is rather prominent in this.

22 Cosima

It’s a really beautiful gravestone.

Perhaps that’s a morbid thought, but it is the first one that Cosima has, upon standing at Charlie’s grave for the first time. That he has a very beautiful stone.

She would guess granite, but it has a soft blueish tint to it. There’s his name on it, in bold letters, as well as the dates of his short life. And a huge jellyfish on the left side, curving its way to the top. Beneath the dates, there’s a French phrase that has the brunette squinting at it, her brain taking a moment to translate it, figure out the meaning.

_We miss you._

Of course.

Cosima watches as Delphine slowly rises from where she was kneeling on the ground before, putting down the colorful bunch of flowers she had brought along.

“Jellyfish?” she asks as the blonde comes to stand next to her again.

“Hm,” Delphine hums softly. Cosima watches her swallow thickly and reaches out to take her hand. Gives it a soft squeeze, hoping to tell the woman that she’s here, for whatever Delphine needs. It’s okay. They don’t have to talk, if that’s too much right now.

“He liked them the most,” Delphine murmurs softly after a long pause. Cosima hears her draw a slow breath before she lets it out again.

“Whenever we went to the Aquarium, he only wanted to go watch them. Charlie, he, he had a nightlight, as well. A bit like those, lava lamps? But with two of those in it. Two fake jellyfish, that were moving around inside, floating… I, I guess I thought…” the blonde trails off with a shuddering breath, clenching her eyes shut.

“I think it’s wonderful. It was a beautiful idea,” Cosima tells her, wrapping an arm around Delphine’s waist in an attempt to help steady her, ground her. Hug the woman slightly and provide her some silent support and comfort.

It makes sense, that Delphine wanted to add the jellyfish. Cosima probably would have done the same thing. Not just because the boy had apparently liked them so much, but it’s also that he apparently slept better with them, kind of watching over him and his dreams, then Cosima would have wanted them to watch over him, kind of, forever.

“Evan didn’t really care for it, when I first brought it up,” Delphine tells her. “He, he felt that it was, silly. But then the, the man from the, funeral home, he showed us pictures, of gravestone templates. And they had all sorts of things on them. Evan, he ended up changing his mind, in the end. Actually wanted to have it bigger, even, than I’d originally thought to make it,” Delphine tells her, her lips tugging into a wistful smile, before she sobers again. Shifts again and takes Cosima’s hand. Holds onto it tightly, her breath stuttering briefly in her chest.

Delphine had actually asked her, if she would come along with her, the next time she went to visit her son’s grave. It’s a little, weird, Cosima has to admit that. She’d wanted to say yes and no at the same time, torn. On one hand, she’d wanted to come, because it is Delphine’s child. It’s Charlie, the little guy that means so much to the blonde. She loves him so much, and Cosima, she wants to be a part of that, in a sense. She wants to honor his memory and also be there for her partner, if Delphine needs it, if she wants that support from Cosima.

Yet at the same time, it feels like she is, intruding. Feels like she shouldn’t be here, right now. She doesn’t know Charlie, not personally. Never met the wonderful little kid when he was still alive. All Cosima knows, about him, has been from his mother. Delphine’s stories, her memories, everything that the blonde has decided to share with Cosima so far, about her son. And it feels like it may not be Cosima’s place, to join her here.

Cosima swallows before slowly letting go of Delphine’s hand. Takes a careful step forward and bends down to put down the small bundle of wildflowers she picked up for Charlie.

“Hey,” she murmurs softly, as she straightens again. Reaches up to rub the back of her neck nervously. “I, I’m Cosima,” she offers with a small shrug, her brows dipping slightly as she tries to figure out, how she would have introduced herself to the boy, had she met him.

“I, I hope it’s okay that I came. I, know your mom. She, she really means a lot, to me, and I know how much she loves you, and misses you, so I, wanted to meet you, as well.”

Cosima feels Delphine take her hand again before the blonde rests her chin on Cosima’s shoulder. Feels her breath on the skin of her neck as Delphine draws a ragged inhale.

“Thank you,” she murmurs softly, causing Cosima to swallows thickly.

“Thank you,” she replies, squeezing Delphine’s hand hard as she allows silence to stretch between the two of them. Allows Delphine as much time as the blonde might need, alone with her thoughts, with her son, before they will start to head back to Cosima’s car.

* * *

23 Delphine

Delphine slowly reaches out, carefully allowing her fingertips to trail over the wood of the sign.

“There you are.”

The blonde jumps at the sound of Cosima’s voice and whirls around, her mouth falling open, ready to apologize, but the brunette waves her off.

Instead she steps into her bedroom, and closes the door behind herself, shutting out the noise of the music drifting up from downstairs, as well as the clinking of kitchenware.

Cosima leans against the wood and closes her eyes as Delphine swallows hard.

“I, I didn’t mean…” Delphine stammers, inclining her head. She knows that she was intruding. She shouldn’t have gone up by herself. Should have at least asked Cosima, if it was okay that she went to her room alone. But Delphine had figured the brunette might want a moment alone, with her parents, so she’d gone upstairs, mostly to use the bathroom as well. That she went to Cosima’s bedroom after, that had been more Delphine wanting to see the bed and what the sleeping arrangement would be like, than her wanting to snoop. Cosima’s father had brought up their bags, and Delphine hadn’t had a chance to see the room before.

Coming here for the long weekend, that had been Cosima’s idea. Her suggestion. She’d mentioned that she used to do that, before, but that since Sam, she hasn’t had the energy to spend so much time alone with her parents. So she’d asked Delphine, if the blonde really meant it, when she said that she wanted to meet them. If she still wanted to, and if she did, then the two of them could go and visit Cosima’s parents. And in case staying at the house became too much, for either of them, then they could go for a walk, under the guise of Cosima showing Delphine the neighborhood she grew up in, the area she lived in for her teenage years. Sneak in a few breaks that way, and some time where the two of them would be able to be alone with each other. Help each other catch their breaths and recharge.

“It’s fine,” Cosima tells her as she opens her eyes again. She slowly walks over, fingers touching the lettering of her daughter’s name again. It’s a beautiful, intricate handlettering script, and Delphine wonders briefly, if it might have been Cosima’s mother who painted it, or if it might have been the brunette herself, or perhaps even her father.

The name plague is made of wood, with an intricate pattern of leaves and flowers carved along the edge. Underneath Sam’s name is a black and white picture, of the baby’s little feet. It strikes Delphine as interesting, that whoever made it chose her feet and not the baby’s face to memorialize her.

“Her birthday was supposed to go there,” Cosima says, motioning towards the picture. “My parents wanted this to be a gift, for us. To put up over her crib. My mom designed the pattern and painted the name, and my dad carved the pattern, after I told them what her name was going to be. But then I, I got the test results, and…” Cosima trails off with a frown.

“I think they didn’t want the date there. I kind of, I guess it feels too much like an, an expiration date, sometimes,” Cosima sighs, rubbing her forehead before she lets her hand fall away.

“Why is it here?” Delphine asks, watching Cosima’s face. She’s wondered about that, since she first found the thing. Thought that, perhaps the brunette doesn’t want the reminder at her own place, then again, Cosima has complained in the past, about having so few tangible items to remind her of her daughter’s short life. So it seems kind of odd, that Cosima didn’t take the plaque with her.

“I didn’t really know what to do with it,” her partner says with a one-shouldered shrug. “Like, am I supposed to put it up at my place? For what? To stare at it every day and be reminded of what happened, and what I didn’t get to have?” she asks, causing Delphine’s heart to sink at the harsh edge in the brunette’s voice.

“I’m sorry,” she apologizes softly, ducking her head at the force in Cosima’s voice. She doesn’t want to make her feel bad, about the reaction. She gets it, it was a dumb thing to ask, in the first place.

Cosima lets out a loud exhale and then Delphine feels her fingers ghost over the back of her own hand, making the blonde lift her eyes again.

“I’m sorry, too,” Cosima murmurs, offering a sheepish smile. “It’s, it’s not you,” she tells her. “It’s, this place. I find it hard, being here, sometimes. It’s not that I’m mad at you, I’m just… not entirely happy, in general. My fuse gets pretty short when I’m here. Sorry you got the brunt of it.”

“It’s okay,” Delphine waves her off, offering a gentle, understanding smile as she makes a mental note for later. To remind herself that the shortness of Cosima’s temper isn’t due to anything she did, but rather an expression of her being in this place.

“Do you want to head back downstairs?” she asks the brunette, searching Cosima’s face. “We can stay up here if you’d like, or I can leave, in case you want some time just to yourself-”

“No,” Cosima quickly shakes her head, allowing a soft sigh to escape her. “I actually came up to ask you if you wanted to have wine with dinner. Mom asked, which one you’d prefer, and I wasn’t so sure if you wanted to drink at all.”

“Ah,” Delphine nods before tilting her head and then shaking it no, after she has given the question brief thought. “And I don’t think that drinking is such a good idea, right now,” she admits. She doesn’t like drinking when she may have to drive later on. In case Cosima decides that coming here was a mistake and the two of them should leave, or if they might end up changing their plans and decide on finding a hotel to spend the nights at instead.

“Yeah, me neither,” Cosima nods with a dark chuckle. “You know, if they’re too much, you can always tell me. Or them. If they decide to grill you…” the brunette starts, her brows dipping slightly.

Delphine swallows thickly as she inclines her head. Her own parents had done very much that same grilling, when she first started seriously dating Evan and brought him to meet them. It had been, strange, because up to that point, they hadn’t taken that much interest in her partners. Maybe her parents had realized that she was being serious, about being with him. That there was something different about their relationship, compared to Delphine’s previous ones. Evan’s parents had been a lot more, laid back. They had been interested, of course, but there had not been the same amount of, intensity there. Delphine hadn’t felt like there was a wrong answer to any of their questions. Had genuinely felt that they just wanted to actually get to know her, to find out who she was. That that had been the reason for their questions, for asking what she was going to school for, what kind of career she was interested in, what kind of plans she had, for her future.

With Cosima’s parents, Delphine isn’t entirely sure yet, but she thinks that there may very well be wrong answers, to their questions. Or at least things that they will not like hearing. For example, that this is her first actual relationship, with another woman.

That doesn’t mean that she loves Cosima any less, of course not. She adores her, and loves the brunette. Loves her so very much. She’s starting to reach a point where Delphine finds it harder and harder to imagine her life without Cosima in it. Where she doesn’t want to think about her future at all, if that future does not include the other woman in a prominent position. But she understands that someone who doesn’t know her, doesn’t have the insight into her emotions, and her relationship with Cosima, might frown at the knowledge that this is the first time she is seeing a woman long-term, and wonder about her intentions.

“I’ll get through it,” she finally says, tilting up her chin. She will. For Cosima, she’ll sit through hours and hours of parental interrogation. She’ll write out a memoir about her life so far, fill out a questionaire, if that is what her parents would like her to do. If that will convince them of the depth of Delphine’s feelings and how much she cares, about their daughter.

“Thanks,” Cosima whispers, squeezing her hand. “Not just for saying that,” she adds. “For coming with me, in the first place,” she continues, her throat moving as she swallows thickly and looks away. “I, I didn’t realize it before, but it really means a lot, to me. That you’re here, with me.”

“It means a lot to me, as well,” Delphine replies softly, leaning in to brush her lips over Cosima’s in a soft kiss. Cosima steps up close to her and Delphine feels her arms wrapping around her waist in a soft hug. The blonde lets out a soft sigh and hugs her back, brushing her lips over her girlfriend’s temple as she soaks up her proximity, gathering her strength.

* * *

24 Cosima

Perhaps they ought to start, smaller. Maybe pick up something a lot easier. Something more like, a cactus. Yes, a cactus sounds more reasonable. Way more reasonable than a living creature.

Okay, yes, plants are alive as well. But cacti, they’re hardy, and it’s a lot more difficult to kill them than it is to accidentally kill a pet.

Cosima tilts her head at the glass of the terrarium and watches the gecko inside sit on the fake branch, big round eyes unblinking.

“Is it dead?” she asks when the thing fails to move for a few moments, her dark brows dipping as she tilts her head to inspect it from a different angle. Behind her, Delphine steps up, peering into the enclosure, before Cosima sees her slowly shake her head in the reflection of the glass.

“No, it’s breathing,” the blonde says, before frowning. “At least I think it is?” she adds, and Cosima finds herself letting out a low giggle.

Perhaps she ought to have said no, to her intern, when he’d pleaded with her to take the gecko. But the dorms had threatened to kick him out for keeping the thing in the first place. Gave him two days, to figure out a solution, and the local shelter is not equipped to deal with exotics, and Cosima would have very much hated for the poor thing to die.

The irony is that it very well might end up dead, in her care. Cosima isn’t stupid, she knows that it’s a small miracle that most of her plants are still alive. And she’s also not oblivious to the fact that some of that is certainly Delphine’s doing. Ever since the blonde started spending more time at her place, the plants that were looking to be on the verge of death have slowly been recovering from their ordeal. They look a lot more lively. Most of the yellow or dead leaves are gone, and some of them are actually about to go into bloom. Cosima hadn’t even known that the one on the kitchen windowsill was capable of that, but sure enough, it is now sporting a small number of tiny buds, one of which has the slightest hint of pink peeking out.

“I feel like we should be doing something,” Cosima says, frowning at the gecko. What do they even like? Like, Cosima knows that they’re not dogs, so playing fetch with it is probably out of the question. But how is she supposed to entertain the thing then?

“It’s probably sleeping,” Delphine says, slowly moving her hand in front of the glass.

“Okay, yeah, it probably is,” Cosima agrees when the reptile doesn’t react to the motion at all. It’s not aggressive, but definitely curious and inquisitve. If it were awake, and had noticed Delphine’s movement, it probably would have come and checked it out. It certainly would have moved its head, to follow the motion, but right now, nothing is happening. The gecko just sits there, unmoving, its eyes wide open as it stares into space.

“How long are you going to keep it?” Delphine asks as she straightens, and Cosima gives a slight shrug before she goes to walk over to her couch. She flops down onto it, holding out her hand to the blonde in silent invitation. Delphine’s face breaks into a smile and comes over to join Cosima, shifting close.

“I don’t really know,” she sighs as she entwines her fingers with Delphine’s, after the blonde has pulled her feet up on the couch and gotten comfortable.

“Hm,” Delphine hums softly, resting her head on the back of the couch.

“I figured that I’d just, hold onto it for a while. Until the owner finds a more suitable home for it.”

Delphine lets out another low hum and closes her eyes. Cosima watches her, gently stroking her thumb over the back of the blonde’s hand in a circular motion. Allows herself to watch Delphine, to take in her features as the blonde starts to relax a little.

“Bad day?” Cosima asks her, keeping her voice low in an effort to not disturb Delphine too much. The blonde gives a deep sigh before opening her eyes again and straightening.

“Not bad,” she answers. “Not really. Just, a lot. I had two traumas back to back, and it, it took a lot out of me.”

“I’m sorry,” Cosima murmurs, giving Delphine’s hand a squeeze.

“It’s okay,” her girlfriend replies with a soft smile, giving a minute shake of her head. “They’re going to be alright, which is what’s important. It’s just… I keep going over it all in my head, over and over again,” she adds with a frown, looking away, and Cosima feels her heart sink.

“Everything that I did, what I should have done, what would have been better, would have provided better results faster-”

“Hey,” Cosima murmurs, shifting. She reaches out to touch Delphine’s cheek, to get her to look at her again. Get her out of her own thoughts. “You said it yourself, they’ll be fine. You did everything right.”

“Did I?” Delphine counters immediately, lifting her brows before she furrows them again and shakes her head. “I should have had the epi on standby. I knew that the first one was going to crash, that it was only a matter of time, with those injuries. And then I wasted precious seconds. Moments that very well might have made a difference-”

“Hey, no,” Cosima interrupts as Delphine’s breathing gets father, her voice more agitated. She takes the blonde’s into her hands and kneels onto her couch.

“Stop,” she tells the blonde softly. “Breathe. Take a breath,” she murmurs. You did everything you could in the situation, to be best of your ability. It’s okay.”

Delphine swallows thickly and draws a slow breath, allowing it to gradually escape her again, before she does it again, Cosima mirroring her easily.

“Better?” she asks after the third time, hoping that the exercise got her girlfriend off the edge of the panic attack she was tethering on. Delphine nods, closing her eyes with a shuddering breath.

“It’s just, my review is coming up, and…” Delphine trails off with a shudder, Cosima’s heart sinking further at the reminder.

She knows that Delphine wants to stay in Emergency Medicine. That that’s where her passion is, that it motivates her and drives her to help people, because of how drastic improvements can be in just a few moments. And most days, Cosima agrees that it is probably a good choice, for her. But then are those days, when the blonde is already struggling, and when is having trouble managing her own emotions, and the worst thing to happen, the worst place to be, in that situation, is an ER that is getting slammed.

And it certainly doesn’t help that Delphine has been putting herself under a lot of pressure and felt like she cannot take any days off to recover, to tend to her mental health. The closer that the dreaded board review is getting the more pressure the blonde puts herself under, and it is causing Cosima to actually really worry about her. She’s noticed that the past couple of days, Delphine was already up whenever her alarm went off. And Cosima has noticed how the deep circles under the blonde’s eyes have made a reapperance again, was well. They’re not as bad as they used to be, but them being there at all is definitely not a good sign, Cosima feels like.

“You, have tomorrow off, right?” she inquires, gently toying with the fingers of one of Delphine’s hands. The blonde watches her, her body relaxing a little.

“Hm,” she hums softly, her lips curving into a subtle smile. “Why?”

“No particular reason,” Cosima shrugs, leaning down to press a soft kiss to Delphine’s knuckles. “It just occurred to me… we could do, whatever we want. Like, sleep in. Have a lazy day. Just lounge around in PJs and watch silly movies while devouring tubs of ice cream.”

Delphine lets out a soft laugh at the suggestion, and just that sound was well worth making it in the first place, Cosima thinks, even if her girlfriend may feel like she is being ridiculous.

“Are we teenagers?” she asks, amusement twinkling in Delphine’s green eyes, and Cosima sticks out her tongue at the other woman before she gives a shake of her head.

“No,” she allows with a slight inclining of her head. “We’re adults. Which, in this scenario, actually kind of sucks, because it means that we’ll have to pay for the ice cream ourselves. But it also means that no one can tells us what to do. Can’t kick us out of bed…” she trails off, searching Delphine’s face.

“I think you really need a break,” she tells her bluntly. Watches, as Delphine’s head whips up, the thumb that was previously drawing circles on Cosima’s knee stopping its motion abruptly.

“Cosima-”

“Please consider what you’re about to say,” she interrupts the blonde. “Because I really don’t want you to lie to me.”

Delphine draws a shuddering breath, pressing her lips together.

“You need a break,” Cosima repeats, softening her voice as she meets Delphine’s eyes. “There’s no shame in that. And I understand that this isn’t as easy as, just jumping into the car, or going to the airport and getting a random ticket anywhere. We have, responsibilities. I get that, believe me,” Cosima tells her. “But no one says that you and I can’t take tomorrow to unplug and unwind. You look like you really, really need it,” she insists. “And to be honest, I could use some, slowing down, as well,” Cosima adds on an impulse, hoping that it will help Delphine to at least give the idea some actual thought. While she may have trouble looking after herself and taking necessary breaks, she is usually rather vigilant, when it comes to Cosima and her needs and making sure that the brunette gets necessary breaks.

Sure enough, Cosima can see the protest die on Delphine’s tongue. The blonde’s mouth had already been open, but she doesn’t speak. Instead, she just sits there, mouth slightly open, for a moment, before she closes it again and swallows, her brows dipping slightly before Delphine lets out a deep sigh.

“Okay,” she finally murmurs. Reaches up to rub her fingers over her forehead. “Okay,” she repeats, her voice a little softer and Cosima smiles at her, leaning in to brush her lips over Delphine’s in a gentle kiss.

“Merci,” she tells her as she pulls back, trying to fight down a cheeky grin.

“Now, what would you like to do, for our lazy day tomorrow?” Cosima asks. She hears Delphine let out a dramatic groan and sigh, causing the brunette to shake her head at her girlfriend’s antics. She’ll get her to relax, one way or another. After all, Cosima still has a couple of tricks up her sleeve.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings/content warnings for sexual content, depression, medical procedures, needles.
> 
> happy new year! here's to hoping 2021 doesn't suck as much as 2020 did

25 Delphine

“You were right.”

Delphine follows up the admission by brushing her lips over the soft skin stretching across Cosima’s clavicle. The brunette lets out a soft sigh, her fingers gently scratching Delphine’s scalp, causing the blonde to melt even more against her.

“I always am,” Cosima replies, and Delphine shakes her head, nipping carefully at the soft flesh in rebuke. Cosima can be such a damn brat, sometimes, she thinks, even as her lips curl into a soft smile.

“Hey!” Cosima exclaims in indignation, trying to squirm away from her, but Delphine’s arm around her waist tightens and she holds her fast against her.

“Just, for the sake of my own record-keeping, what exactly is it that I am right about, this time?” Cosima inquires before gently guiding Delphine up for a soft kiss. One the blonde easily loses herself in, for a moment. Because kissing Cosima is just absolutely wonderful and what she wants to do most, right now. Kissing, as well as other things, Delphine thinks as she rocks her hips against her girlfriend’s.

“Hm?” she hums when they finally part. Cosima nudges Delphine’s nose with her own, chuckling softly and the blonde feels herself blush as she remembers the question, her brain kicking into gear again.

“Oh. Right. I meant, about me needing a break.”

“Ah,” Cosima nods, her hands slowly trailing down Delphine’s back, nails blunt against her skin. Delphine jumps in surprise when Cosima squeezes her ass, pulling Delphine roughly against herself. It makes the breath catch in the blonde’s throat, the slow, lazy rhythm of her rocking against Cosima faltering briefly.

“I am very much enjoying our quick break,” Cosima grins at her, playfully nipping at Delphine’s lower lip.

“I should hope so,” the blonde quips, pressing up against Cosima, delight building when she hears the breath catch in the other woman’s throat.

Getting an expensive hotel room for the day might have been one of the best ideas that they ever had. Leaving the city hadn’t sounded like a great idea, not when it would have meant wasting hours of their time spent driving. But checking into a hotel, that had been a nice idea.

The sheets are wonderfully soft against Delphine’s naked skin, and just for that, it would have been totally worth it. They were pretty cool when she’d first found herself pressed into them as well, shortly after their arrival. But it’s been over four hours since then, almost all of which Cosima and her spent in bed, so they’re no longer cool. Pity, really, but Delphine feels like the will enjoy the shower in a little. To cool off some. With Cosima, of course, though that might turn out to not be all that cooling and calming, Delphine thinks as her hips jerk in response to Cosima’s fingers dipping between the blonde’s legs again.

She’s given up trying to keep track after the third orgasm. Or the fourth. Delphine’s not entirely sure, if that had been a long, drawn out one, or maybe one right after the other. It doesn’t really matter, she thinks. What matters is that this, is utterly wonderful and amazing. Just laying in bed with Cosima, touching the brunette, getting to fully enjoy her responses without having to think or worrying about anything else for the day, that feels utterly glutenous.

“Aw,” Cosima whispers when she shivers against the smaller body and quickly reaches down to grab the brunette’s wrist and still her fingers. “Sensitive?”

“Hm,” Delphine nods, swallowing thickly at the weird sense of, almost relief that she feels when Cosima removes her hand again. It is frustrating and calming at the same time, causing Delphine to feel utterly confused.

“It’s fine,” Cosima tells her, gently stroking her cheek and kissing the tip of her nose, but Delphine lets out a huff of annoyance.

“It’s not because I think I disappointed you,” she tells Cosima, kissing the brunette as she rocks her hips against her again. “I’m not upset about that. I’m upset because I’m so damn horny,” Delphine pouts, tearing a soft laugh from her partner.

“Ah,” Cosima hums and Delphine takes the opportunity presented to her by the brunette tilting back her head to pepper Cosima’s throat and the sensitive skin there with kisses. Revels in the soft, dreamy sigh that the action draws from Cosima. Delphine gives a suck over the spot where she can feel the other woman’s pulse against her tongue, before she lets her teeth graze the sensitive skin. Instantly, Cosima’s hips give an involuntary jerk, lifting off the bed as she lets out a moan, Delphine’s lips curling into a wicked grin at the intensity of the other woman’s reaction.

Perhaps it is time for a little, experiment of sorts. Time to figure out what Cosima’s most sensitive spots are. And the only way to find those, naturally, is for Delphine to slowly map out the brunette’s body with her mouth, taking her time to be extremely thorough in her examination, and of course to also test the response to different stimuli, such as kisses, licking and careful nibs. Until she has Cosima moaning and squirming against her, her skin flushed, dark eyes clenches shut, and Delphine’s name on her wonderful lips when she finally comes.

* * *

26 Cosima

Cosima swallows and reaches down, attempting to smooth out her skirt for the fourth time. She probably should have picked something a bit longer. And she would have, too, had she known that she’d be meeting Delphine’s freaking parents!

Her first instinct would be to assume that Delphine lied to her. That, in an attempt to play down the importance of this, Delphine led her believe that it was just the two of them, going for drinks, hoping to prevent Cosima from freaking out over the knowledge that she would be meeting her girlfriend’s parents.

But Cosima saw the surprise on Delphine’s face when they found her parents at the hotel bar. She saw how she froze and her eyes widened and her jaw dropped, and Cosima knows that Delphine did not lie to her, or misled her. The blonde hadn’t known that her parents were in town, either, and no idea that they would be running into them.

Apparently, they had planned on calling Delphine tomorrow. To ask if she wanted to meet up and have dinner with them. They only came here because one of her mother’s friends is getting married again, and they thought that it would just be a two day stay, for the engagement party, but it turned out that they were having so much fun and there is so much catching up to do, that they spontaneously decided for the rest of the week, perhaps even the next, who knows.

Cosima reaches for her wine and takes a slow sip, her throat moving painfully as she swallows.

“Is it not good?” Delphine’s mother asks, causing the brunette to look up in confusion. She sees the older woman eye her plate of barely-touched food, and finds herself flushing.

“Oh. Uh, no. No, it’s, it’s great, really,” she shakes her head. “I’m just…” she trails off, not entirely sure what it is she’s supposed to say.

I’m just too busy trying not to crap my pants to eat, that’s all, doesn’t sound like an appropriate thing to tell your girlfriend’s mother. Especially not during your first meeting.

“We, already had a light dinner, before coming here,” Delphine offers helpfully. The blonde’s plate is only slightly more empty than Cosima’s, and the brunette is fairly sure that the only reason for that is because Delphine’s father stole a few bites. He’d been torn between what the blonde ordered, and his own dish, so Delphine offered him some bites of hers so he wouldn’t miss out too much.

“How is work?” Delphine’s mother asks, turning her attention back to her daughter. “It’s been so long, since you talked about it…” she trails off, a worried expression crossing her face.

“It’s, it’s fine,” Delphine shakes her head, reaching for her own wine and taking a big gulp of it.

“She’s got a promotion,” Cosima supplies helpfully. She reaches out and takes Delphine’s hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze as she tries to smile at the blonde.

“Really?” the older woman asks, her face lighting up. “Oh, that is wonderful! Congratulation, my love! We are so happy for you!”

Cosima finds her eyes widening at the sound of relief and genuine happiness in her voice. She thought that she was, acting it up, but apparently, Adele is really happy, for her daughter.

“It’s not, it’s nothing big,” Delphine shakes her head. She twirls the stem of her wine glass on the tablecloth, frowning at the sight. “I just, run clinic hours, for patients with immune disease issues, twice a week.”

“That doesn’t sound like nothing,” her father offers between two bites, chewing thoughtfully, and Cosima nods enthusiastically. She’s really, really proud of Delphine, for landing that position.

The blonde looks up sharply, though, and Cosima sees her brows dipping.

“They gave it to me out of pity, okay?” she snaps, causing Cosima’s dark eyes to widen.

“Because I cannot cope with the ER, not when it’s busy. Which it always is,” Delphine continues, her voice rising. “I’m not cured, this,” she adds, motioning in a circle at the side of her head, “this isn’t going away. And the hospital saw that I was drowning again, and they decided to throw me a, a lifeline. That’s the only reason they offered me a spot on the immunology team. God knows I certainly haven’t earned it on my own merit, not with the bullshit my work has been.”

Delphine’s mother gapes at her daughter, surprised by the blonde’s outburst, and even her father has stopped shoveling food in his mouth.

The other woman picks up her drink again and empties it in a large gulp before setting it down again. She pulls the napkin from her lap, dabbing at the corner of her mouth.

“Delphine,” her mother starts weakly when her daughter throws her napkin on the table.

“Excuse me, I’m getting a headache,” she mutters before standing, the legs of her chair scraping loudly over the floor as she pushes it back and then makes a beeline for the exit.

“I, I’m sorry, I…” Cosima stammers, before gabbing her phone and purse and then hurrying after her girlfriend. Outside, she has to shake her head, searching for Delphine’s familiar form down the street, before Cosima follow, trying to catch up with her.

“Delphine! Hey, Delphine!” she calls out, quickening her strides even more, in hopes of finally catching up with the blonde. Who is still walking at a brisk pace, trying to light a cigarette without stopping.

“Hey,” Cosima huffs, finally managing to draw up with her.

“Hey, what’s, slow down for a sec,” she mutters, reaching out, but she catches herself at the last moment before touching the blonde. There’s a wall of emotion radiating off of Delphine right now. So much anger, and resentment, and frustration, that it nearly knocks the wind out of Cosima. She’s pretty sure that Delphine wouldn’t be happy, if she were to touch her now.

“Hey,” she tries again, hurrying around the other woman, in an effort to block Delphine’s path. The taller woman stops short, glaring down at Cosima. Who quickly holds up her hands, palms out, to placate her at least a little.

“Woah, easy there,” she tells her. “I’m not the bad guy, here,” Cosima tries, but feels the joke fall flat.

“Move.”

“Right,” Cosima nods. “After I tell you that the car is the other way, and give you a second to let that piece of information sink in,” she says, tilting her head just a little at Delphine. Who meets her eyes and Cosima swallows at the hardness in them. Slowly takes a step aside, allowing Delphine to continue walking down the street, if she so desires. Which she does, Delphine doesn’t waste a second and immediately resumes her brisk pace once her path is cleared.

Cosima tilts back her head and closes her eyes for a moment. Draws a deep breath, and another, before she shakes her head. Turns around and goes to follow Delphine, deciding to trail a few paces behind the other woman. Close enough for Delphine to know that she’s there, but hopefully not enough to bother her. To be too much of an intrusion. Giving her some space, to allow her to walk whatever this is off and get her bearings again.

* * *

27 Delphine

“Boyfriend present?”

The girl on the bed frowns at her in confusion, her brows dipping.

“Huh?” Lyra asks as Delphine checks the insides of her arms, looking for a viable vein she can use.

“The bear,” she says, nodding towards where the stuffed animal is sitting on the girl’s bedside table.

She noticed it when she walked into the room a few minutes ago. It hadn’t been there the other day, when Delphine was last in. When she did her last rounds with the immunocompromised patients. New additions in their otherwise sparse rooms, they are easy to notice.

Normally, she would think that Lyra is a bit too young, for an actual boyfriend. Or girlfriend. Or, whatever. But Lyra is mature, for her thirteen years. At least most of the time. There are moments when she is very much still a little child, and combined with the ones where she acts very much like someone a lot older, it kept giving Delphine whiplash, at first. But the odd combination has also made her feel oddly drawn, to this particular patient.

“Oh. Oh no,” Lyra shakes her head, blushing. She reaches up, brushing her newly cut hair behind her ear, before lowering her arm again so Delphine can continue her inspection. She first was admitted with hair reaching down the middle of her back, but something made her decide to get it chopped off. Now she’s sporting a cut that makes her hair barely reach her shoulders, and if her nervous gestures are anything to go by, Delphine thinks it has been, an adjustment, for the girl.

“Girlfriend, then?” Sam, the nurse doing rounds with her today asks with an easy smile as she finishes setting up a bloodwork tray for Delphine.

“No!” the teenager exclaims, a hint of panic in her voice as she squirms on her bed.

“Sorry,” the nurse immediately apologizes, her eyes darting to Lyra’s mother. “We were just…”

“It’s fine,” the older woman waves her off and goes to stand at the head of her daughter bed, peering down at what Delphine is doing.

“It’s not going to work, is it?” she asks with a resigned sigh, reaching out to brush her daughter’s hair back from her face.

“No, no, I think I’ve found one,” Delphine declares, reaching out to release the cuff around Lyra’s upper right arm, the vein she wants to use being located on the girl’s left.

“Doc Delphine…”

“It’s fine,” Delphine shakes her head at Sam, giving the younger woman a look that she hopes will cut off any further argument from the nurse. She knows that Lyra’s arms are bad, that it will require some luck, to manage to get blood from the vein she picked. But the girl also has a pain disorder. Drawing blood from her hand will be even worse for her, than it is for the other patients. The mere mention of it is usually enough to reduce the poor thing to a crying ball, and Delphine would like to avoid upsetting her more than at all necessary.

“We’re gonna try this one, okay?”

“Hm,” Lyra nods, biting her lower lip as she squirms again, the fingers of her right hand digging into the side of her mattress.

“Here,” Sam murmurs, gently taking her hand in her own. “You can squeeze as much as you need to. Don’t worry, I won’t break,” she adds with a laugh in her voice at the girl’s doubtful look.

“Right,” Lyra huffs, looking away.

“She’s telling the truth, you know,” Delphine tells her and gets up from the girl’s bed, to disinfect her hands and put on a fresh pair of sterile gloves, before she sits down again. And then carefully disinfects the inside of Lyra’s arm.

“I once watched her jump on a patient’s back and inject a sedative into the vein in their neck.”

Lyra lets out a shocked gasp and looks up at Sam in surprise. The woman is 120 pounds sopping wet, if that, but she has steel nerves and just the right amount of recklessness.

Delphine uses the moment of distraction in the teen to quickly stick her with the thin butterfly needle, inserting it into the tiny vein she found. The blonde doctor holds her breath for a second before she hears the girl’s mother exhale in relief as blood begins to fill the thin tubing.

“See? Wasn’t that easy?” Delphine asks with a bright, triumphant smile as she reaches for the first vial and attaches it to collect a blood sample.

Lyra glares at her, letting out a huff before she falls back into her pillow.

“You lied to me,” she accuses and Delphine frowns, exchanging vials.

“Huh?” she murmurs, seeing Sam note down Lyra’s name and date on the first vial.

“She didn’t,” the nurse chimes in, defending Delphine. “I really did that,” she shrugs when Lyra rolls her eyes at her.

“I mean, it was, a few years ago. On my first day, actually. I guess I figured, if they were going to fire me for it, at least it wasn’t after I’d made myself comfy already,” she shrugs.

“Sam started out in the ER, like me,” Delphine smiles at the girl, gently removing the vial and grabbing the cotton ball before she removes the needle from the girl’s arm. She hears her hiss in pain and quickly presses the ball to the wound, making a shushing sound as she stems the flow of blood.

As Sam cleans up the tray and marks off the lab request, Delphine checks the rest of the girl’s vitals again, making sure she is doing relatively okay after the blood draw.

“So, what happens now?” her mother asks, gently smoothing back her daughter’s hair in a tender gesture before she bends down and kisses her forehead.

“We’ll get the results tomorrow. Depending on what the numbers are, we’ll discuss options then,” Delphine tells her, closing the girl’s chart.

“Doc Eric is gonna talk to me about them?” Lyra asks. She picks up the bear, toying with it’s big ears.

“No, I’ll do that,” Delphine shakes her head. And watches in surprise as the girl’s eyes widen and her lips quirk into a hopeful smile.

“Really?” she asks.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Delphine tosses back, just a little taken aback by the reaction. “I was the one who poked you, after all.”

“But, it’s your day off, tomorrow,” Lyra shrugs. “You’re only here every other day. Yesterday was your day off, so today is your regular day, and tomorrow…” she frowns at the bear again. “Tomorrow is Doc Eric’s day.”

The girl is not exactly wrong there. Actually, she’s right. Delphine only works up at the ward every other day. The ones in between, she either takes off, or doing small work at the ER. It depends on her mental health, how well she is coping, at the moment.

It’s been both good and bad, working with the immunocompromised patients. The adults Delphine can deal with easily. They’re normal patients to her, just with particular disorders and special diagnosis. Back in med school she’d been good, at immunology. It had actually been one of her best fields, and one she had enjoyed as well. So much so that she gave it serious thought, when it came to deciding her specialization. In the end, she’d picked Emergency Medicine, drawn by the quick results, the adrenaline rush, and by the way that everyone pulling together to save one patient felt.

But the nature of this ward, it also means that some of Delphine’s patients now are children. Some are teenagers, like Lyra. And others are much, much younger than the girl. There are infants here, and toddlers, and preschoolers. Working on them, that’s a special kind of difficult still, for the blonde. Not just because of the grim prognosis most of them have. It’s also that Delphine simply cannot help but keep remembering her own child. Cannot help but think of little Charlie, and how much she loves him, and how terrible his absence still cuts, how much his loss pains her, even years after the fact. Delphine cannot help but think that, if these parents knew what pain lay ahead of them, they would start screaming, and never stop again.

“Would you rather Doc Eric talk to you? About your results?” Sam’s voice cuts through Delphine’s thoughts. The nurse is trying to offer Lyra an out. A way for her to tell them, if she rather have someone else talk to her about her treatment. To let them know, if she would be more comfortable with someone else, someone who is not Delphine.

The girl’s eyes widen and she shakes her head vehemently.

“No!” Lyra exclaims, her chest rising rapidly. The heart monitor next to her bed lets out a warning beeping as the girl’s pulse jumps, and Delphine stands, shutting the alarm off.

“I like Delphine more,” Lyra says, drawing slow, deliberate breaths, to calm herself down. Apparently, the work they have been doing with her seems to be working. “I want her to talk to me.”

“Then we will do that,” Delphine smiles at the girl easily. “I’ll stop by tomorrow, and we will discuss things.”

Lyra, she’s a lot older, than Delphine’s own child ever was. And while the blonde is often reminded of the love she has for her son, when she looks at Lyra’s mother and sees the expression in her eyes, she also know that the girl’s diagnosis is not an outright death sentence. With some luck, the treatment they’re currently trying is working and her numbers will come back improved when compared to the last bloodwork they did. Lyra certainly has been showing signs of improvement. Her skin doesn’t look as ashen anymore, and she has been more lively these past few days. The dark circles under her eyes are still there, but not nearly as pronounced as they were when she was first admitted.

Delphine watches the girl’s mother nudge Lyra, whispering something to her child, and the girl swallows thickly, before holding out the bear to Delphine.

“Huh?” she murmurs, tilting her head at the toy in confusion.

“It’s for you,” Lyra tells her, blushing furiously. “Igotitforyoubecauseyou’remyfavoriteandyuneverstickmemorethantwice,” she rushes out in one big breath. Instinctively, Delphine looks up to check the girl’s monitor, to check her oxygen saturation after that, before she blinks, her brain finally deciphering the string of sounds that just left the girl into actual words.

“I try not to,” she mutters, swallowing against the big lump in her throat as she turns back to the girl. “You don’t have to get me a present,” she tells her. “It’s my job-”

“Please take it,” Lyra’s mother chimes in and Delphine slowly reaches out, to accept the bear. “I had to go to four different stores, until I found one she would agree to.”

“Moooooom!” the girl whines, hiding her face in her hands as Delphine lets out a soft laugh.

“It is a very nice bear. Thank you, for the gift,” she says, before pausing. “Does he have a name yet?” she asks and watches as her little patient lowers her hands and rolls her eyes as she shakes her head no. Delphine tilts her head before reaching out again. She gently tucks the bear back against Lyra’s side, the girl frowning at her.

“What-”

“You have to find a name for him first,” Delphine tells her. “I can’t accept him as long as he doesn’t have one.”

“That’s dumb,” Lyra huffs, crossing her arms.

“It’s the rule,” Delphine shakes her head. And sees Sam nod when Lyra looks at the nurse, doubt knitting the child’s brows.

“She’s right, you know,” the nurse backs Delphine up without missing a beat. “You can’t give someone a bear that doesn’t have a name yet. That’s not fair on the poor guy.”

“I’ll be back tomorrow, when we’re going over your results. So you have the whole day, to think of a name for him. And if you haven’t got one by the time I stop by, then he’ll just have to spend another night in your company,” Delphine tells the girl with a smile, before saying her goodbyes and leaving the room.

Outside, she takes off her gloves and face mask, wiping the sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand before she reaches back to get out of the yellow protective gown. She hates these things, they’re always so hot, especially in the summer.

“She’s cute,” Sam comments softly as she strips out of her own protective gear.

“She is,” Delphine agrees, putting Lyra’s chart back into the slot by the door.

“You know, her first question on the days you’re on is always if you’re still coming,” the nurse remarks with a slight tilt of her head. Delphine swallows at the comment as they start down the hallway.

“Maybe I need to, take a step back,” she frowns. She doesn’t want to encourage too strong a bond, between her patients and herself. And Lyra is still young. She’s just recently turned thirteen, and Delphine find herself suddenly worrying that perhaps this might not all be that innocent after all. Maybe the girl is infatuated, with Delphine. has developed a crush on the blonde doctor. Perhaps it would be better, if Delphine didn’t accept the girl’s gift. Not because she doesn’t think it’s a sweet gesture, but to help the girl with drawing a clearer line. To help Lyra understand, what the nature of their relationship is. That Delphine is her doctor, and not her friend, even if she may be friendly towards her-

“It’s not just her, you know,” Sam’s voice interrupts Delphine’s musings, causing the doctor to stop in her tracks.

“What?” she frowns, not entirely sure what the nurse meant, with her comment. Sam watches her, searching Delphine’s face for a moment.

“Patients like you,” she finally tells her bluntly. “You’re a good doctor. Your knowledge is solid, and when you’re out of our depth you go and research like crazy,” she says, causing Delphine to blush slightly in embarrassment at the unexpected compliment. “But more than that, they get along with you. They like you, as a person. They respect your honesty, and you have a way of talking to them that doesn’t make them feel stupid,” the younger woman continues. “You know, some of the patients, they’re scared. Really, really scared. And they’ve got every reason to be, I’m not judging them,” the nurse says. “But the other doctors, they get annoyed with the constant hand-holding and reassuring people. They leave that stuff to the nurses. Some of them, they can’t get out of the rooms fast enough. But you’re, different” she remarks, tilting her head slightly and Delphine feels her cheek heat anew.

“You take your time, you answer their questions. Even if it’s for the twentieth time. You don’t make them feel like a burden, like you have something better to do with your time. And they really appreciate that,” Sam shrugs, crossing her arms. She draws a slow breath, her brows dipping.

“When they first told us that you’d be joining the immunology team, I wasn’t exactly thrilled,” the nurse admits. “I know the stories, from the ER. And I thought, I thought that it was a bad move. To send you up here, I mean. I thought that it wasn’t fair, not to you, not to us nurses, and certainly not to the patients that rely on all of us. And I, I owe you an apology for that. For thinking that way.”

“What?” Delphine breathes, her eyes widening in surprise. That’s, honestly the last thing she expected.

“I was wrong, about this. You’re good. Like, really, really good. And you deserved better than me judging you without even seeing you work for ten minutes,” Sam shrugs. “And full disclosure, management wanted to know if we think you have a future, on this ward. They asked us nurses, what we thought, and you should know that all of us said we wanted you on board full time. If that’s something you want, of course.”

Delphine gapes at the other woman, utterly shocked by her words. She swallows thickly and looks away as her jaw works, the nurse’s words slowly starting to sink in.

Less than two months ago, she sat at a restaurant table with her parents and ended up snapping. When Cosima had called the offer to work up at this ward a promotion, it had made her see red. All that Delphine had been able to see the offer as, had been another futile attempt of the administration trying to find a place for her at the hospital that she would somehow manage to ot be overwhelmed at.

She thought that she was doing a really piss-poor job, so far. She’s behind on her charting again, and she takes way too long with her patients. She doesn’t know how to delegate properly, hasn’t even managed to learn the names of all the nurses yet and on top of that, she still has to ask where some of the equipment is. On her days off, she spends most of her time trying to play catch-up with the newest research and spends hours reading articles on new studies and epidemiology and diagnostic tools and treatment options and clinical studies and drug trials. If she were a student, or an intern, Delphine is sure that she would be failing, and failing spectacularly at that.

Or, perhaps not. Yes, her charts are, a mess. But she usually manages to catch up, by the end of the week, unless there are any major emergencies. Apparently, at least according to Sam, the patients like that she takes as long as she does, with them, and the nurses might be grumbling a bit, but they aren’t complaining loudly, and not to others. When Delphine forgets their names for a moment, she makes it a point to check their nametags and apologizes afterwards, out of earshot of the patients. And just this week, her constant reading and research meant that she managed to find two trials for two of her patients that will actually take them, plus a treatment option for a third that is offering less invasive procedures as well as fewer potential side effects. So maybe, maybe Delphine would actually be impressed with a resident that was showing that much dedication.

“I…” she starts, not knowing what she’s supposed to say.

“Just give it some thought,” Sam tells her, before she goes to grab the chart for their next patient and handing it to Delphine. Josh, seventy-three, receiving chemotherapy for cancer. It shot his immune system. Delphine frowns down at the note from the night shift, informing her that the man’s temperature had been slightly elevated. She lifts her eyes from the chart and sees the man’s daughter and her husband in their usual chairs at Josh’s bedside. And his son-in-law has pulled down his mask again, surely enough. Lovely.

“I’ll leave the ass kicking to you,” Sam murmurs as they gown up and then step into the room and Delphine bites back a chuckle in favor of being able to glare at her patient’s son in law as the young man hastily pulls up his mask again.

“Good morning, Josh,” she greets the man, offering him a smile as she tilts her head slightly. “How are you feeling today?”

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you're all doing alright-ish with the clusterfuck that is 2020. hang in there! and thanks for reading.


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